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LITTLE MASTERPIECES 



Little Masterpieces 

Edited by Bliss Perry 



DANIKI. WEBSTKR 



REPRESENTATIVE SPEECHES 






MAR 28 1898 

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I 

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Introduction 



Introduction 

If any justification were needed for including 
two of Daniel Webster's orations in a series of 
literary masterpieces, it might be found in the 
words of one of his younger rivals. In his 
" Remarks on the Death of Mr. Webster " be- 
fore the Suffolk Bar, on October 2Sth, 1852 — an 
eulogy only less graceful and memorable than 
his more elaborate discourse delivered before 
the alumni of Dartmouth College the following 
summer — Rufus Choate paid this tribute to the 
literary quality of Webster's speeches : 

" All that he has left, or the larger portion of 
all, is the record of spoken words. His works, 
as already collected, extend to many volumes 
— a library of reason and eloquence, as Gibbon 
has said of Cicero's — but they are volumes of 
speeches only or mainh^ ; and yet who does not 
rank him as a great American author ? an au- 
thor as truly expounding, and as characteristi- 
cally exemplifying, in a pure, genuine, and har- 
monious English style, the mind, thought, point 
of view of objects, and essential nationality of 
his country as any other of our authors, profess- 
edly so denominated ? Against the maxim of 
Mr. Fox, his speeches read well, and yet were 
good speeches — great speeches — in the deliv- 



Introduction 

ery. For so grave were they, so thoughtful 
and true, so much the eloquence of reason at 
last, so strikingly always they contrived to link 
the immediate topic with other and broader 
principles, ascending easily to widest generali- 
zations, so happy was the reconciliation of the 
qualities which engage the attention of hearers, 
yet reward the perusal of students, so critically 
did they keep the right side of the line which 
parts eloquence from rhetoric, and so far do 
they rise above the penury of mere debate, that 
the general reason of the country has enshrined 
them at once, and forever, among our classics. ' ' 
Webster was forty-four when he pronounced 
the commemorative discourse upon John Adams 
and Thomas Jefferson. His Plymouth address 
in 1820, six years before, had established his 
fame as an orator, and the Bunker Hill speech 
of 1825 had confirmed it. The public mind in- 
stantly turned to him in the hour of intense 
American feeling caused by the simultaneous 
deaths, upon July 4th, 1826— the fiftieth anni- 
versary of the Declaration of Independence— of 
the two most prominent survivors of the Revo- 
lutionary struggle. This extraordinary coinci- 
dence, and the historical associations suggested 
by it, stirred the whole country, and the 
thoughts and emotions of a whole country were 
never more adequately voiced by any orator 
than by Webster's eulogy in Faneuil Hall. The 
speech is best known to-day by two passages, 
one on the nature of true eloquence, and the 
viii 



Introduction 

other an imaginary speech on Independence by 
John Adams. But its easy narrative style, apt 
portrayal of character, skilful marshalling of 
historical events, above all, its fine dignity and 
fervid patriotism, are equal evidence of Web- 
ster's unrivalled fitness for such a task. One 
would hesitate to say that the speech as a whole 
is greater than the Plymouth or the Bunker Hill 
addresses, but at least its place is by their side. 

Webster's most celebrated parliamentary 
effort is no doubt his "Second Speech on 
Foot's Resolution," popularly known as the 
" Reply to Hayne." Students of constitutional 
law may be more attracted to his masterly argu- 
ment in reply to Calhoun, entitled " The Con- 
stitution not a Compact between Sovereign 
States." His Seventh of March speech in 1850 
perhaps affected his personal fortunes more 
than any other. But as an exhibition of sheer 
power in debate, the " Reply to Hayne" stands 
alone. 

Like many another speech famous in parlia- 
mentary history, its immediate occasion arose 
almost by accident. On December 2gth, 1S29, 
Senator Foot of Connecticut moved a resolu- 
tion with regard to the sale of public lands. It 
was resented by Mr. Benton of Missouri, and 
other Senators, as an attack upon the West and 
South. Debate proceeded somewhat listlessly, 
however, until January 19th, when Mr. Hayne 
of South Carolina, a graceful and brilliant de- 
bater, made a long and telling speech directed 



Introduction 

against New England. It was felt that a reply 
was due from Mr. Webster, who at that time, 
nevertheless, was engaged in a case before the 
Supreme Court, and had heard but a portion of 
Mr, Hayne's speech. 

Upon the 20th, accordingly, Webster spoke, 
defending the East against the charge of hos- 
tility to the West. The next day Hayne made 
a bitter rejoinder, which was not completed, 
owing to an adjournment of the Senate, until 
the following Monday, the 25th. The hour was 
late when Webster rose to reply, and a motion 
for adjournment prevailed. Upon the succeed- 
ing day, Tuesday, January 26th, the debate 
was resumed, amid circumstances of extreme 
excitement. 

More than one eye-witness of that scene has 
described it in detail, and the story of the 
" Great Debate" must not be repeated here. 
Webster had a threefold aim : to answer 
Hayne's personal taunts, to vindicate Massa- 
chusetts, and to show by a closely reasoned 
argument that "the Constitution was not a 
compact between sovereign States." Never 
was there a greater personal triumph. His con- 
summate skill in rebuttal, the weight and 
cogency of his logic, the lofty love of country! 
that inspired his wonderful peroration, vover- 
mastered both his friends and foes. Such were 
the peculiar political complications of the mo- 
ment that the " Reply to Hayne" became far 
more, besides, than a mere personal triumph. 



Introduction 

But at the distance of nearly seventy years 
those accidental elements of interest fall away, 
and the speech must ultimately be judged no', 
as a historical document, but as literature. 

No one who reads the " Reply to Hayne" or 
the "Adams and Jefferson" with intelligence 
will need to have their literary merits cata- 
logued. As the century nears its close, the sec- 
tional bitterness that made one portion of the 
country blind to Webster's intellectual great- 
ness, and the alienation from his own constitu- 
ents which darkened his latest years, are less 
keenly remembered. A certain noble consis- 
tency he had, from first to last, and he made 
such use of his great gifts of mind and utter- 
ance that Daniel "Webster's "deep, grave 
speech" is everywhere recognized as one of the 
abiding glories of American letters. 

Bliss Perry. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Editor's Introduction . . . „ . v 
Adams and Jefferson ..... i 
Reply to Hayne 6i 



Xlll 



Adams and Jefferson 



Adams and Jefferson* 

This is an tinacctistomed spectacle. For the 
first time, fellow-citizens, badges of mourning 
shroud the columns and overhang the arches of 
this hall. These walls, which were consecrated, 
so long ago, to the cause of American liberty, 
which witnessed her infant struggles, and rung 
with the shouts of her earliest victories, pro- 
claim, now, that distinguished friends and 
champions of that great cause have fallen. It 
is right that it should be thus. The tears which 
flow, and the honors that are paid, when the 
founders of the republic die, give hope that the 
republic itself may be immortal. It is fit that, 
by public assembly and solemn observance, by 
anthem and by eulogy, we commemorate the 
services of national benefactors, extol their vir- 
tues, and render thanks to God for eminent 
blessings, early given and long continued, 
through their agency, to our favored country. 

ADAMS and JEFFERSON are no more ; 
and we are assembled, fellow-citizens, the aged. 



* A Discourse in Commemoration of the Lives and 
Services of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, deliv- 
ered in Faneuil Hall, Boston, on the 2d of August, 1826. 



Daniel Webster 

the middle-aged, and the young, by the spon- 
taneous impulse of all, under the authority of 
the municipal government, with the presence 
of the chief magistrate of the Commonwealth, 
and others its official representatives, the Uni- 
versity, and the learned societies, to bear our 
part in those manifestations of respect and 
gratitude which pervade the whole land. Adams 
and Jefferson are no more. On our fiftieth 
anniversary, the great day of national jubilee, 
in the very hour of public rejoicing, in the midst 
of echoing and reechoing voices of thanksgiv- 
ing, while their own names were on all tongues, 
they took their flight together to the world of 
spirits. 

If it be true that no one can safely be pro- 
nounced happy while he lives, if that event 
which terminates life can alone crown its hon- 
ors and its glory, what felicity is here ! The 
great epic of their lives, how happily concluded ! 
Poetry itself has hardly terminated illustrious 
lives, and finished the career of earthly renown, 
by such a consummation. If we had the pow- 
er, we could not wish to reverse this dispensa- 
tion of the Divine Providence. The great ob- 
jects of life were accomplished, the drama was 
ready to be closed. It has closed ; our patriots 
have fallen ; but so fallen, at such age, with 
such coincidence, on such a day, that we can- 
not rationally lament that that end has come, 
which we knew could not be long deferred. 

Neither of these great men, fellow-citizens, 
4 



Adams and JefYerson 

could have died, at any time, without leaving 
an immense void in our American society. 
They have been so intimately, and for so long 
a time, blended with the history of the country, 
and especially so united, in our thoughts and 
recollections, with the events of the Revolution » 
that the death of either w^ould have touched the 
chords of public sympathy. We should have 
felt that one great link, connecting us with 
former times, was broken ; that we had lost 
something more, as it were, of the presence of 
the Revolution itself, and of the act of inde- 
pendence, and were driven on, by another great 
remove from the days of our country's early 
distinction, to meet posterity, and to mix with 
the future. Like the mariner, whom the cur- 
rents of the ocean and the winds carry along, 
till he sees the stars which have directed his 
course and lighted his pathless way descend, 
one by one, beneath the rising horizon, we 
should have felt that the stream of time had 
borne us onward till another great luminary, 
whose light had cheered us and whose guidance 
we had followed, had sunk away from our 
sight. 

But the concurrence of their death on the an- 
niversary of Independence has naturally awak- 
ened stronger emotions. Both had been Presi- 
dents, both had lived to great age, both were 
early patriots, and both were distinguished and 
ever honored by their immediate agency in the 
act of independence. It cannot but seem strik- 
5 



Daniel Webster 

ing and extraordinary, that these two should 
live to see the fiftieth year from the date of that 
act ; that they should complete that year ; and 
that then, on the day which had fast linked for 
ever their own fame with their country's glory, 
the heavens should open to receive them both 
at once. As their lives themselves were the 
gifts of Providence, who is not willing to recog- 
nize in their happy termination, as well as in 
their long continuance, proofs that our country 
and its benefactors are objects of His care ? 

Adams and Jefferson, I have said, are no 
more. As human beings, indeed, they are no 
more. They are no more, as in 1776, bold and 
fearless advocates of independence ; no more, 
as at subsequent periods, the head of the gov- 
ernment ; no more, as we have recently seen 
them, aged and venerable objects of admiration 
and regard. They are no more. They are 
dead. But how little is there of the great and 
good which can die ! To their country they 
yet live, and live for ever. They live in all 
that perpetuates the remembrance of men on 
earth ; in the recorded proofs of their own great 
actions, in the offspring of their intellect, in the 
deep-engraved lines of public gratitude, and in 
the respect and homage of mankind. They 
live in their example ; and they live, emphati- 
cally, and will live, in the influence which their 
lives and efforts, their principles and opinions, 
now exercise, and will continue to exercise, on 
the affairs of men, not only in their own coun- 
6 



Adams and Jefferson 

try, but throughout the civilized world, A 
superior and commanding human intellect, a 
truly great man, when Heaven vouchsafes so 
rare a gift, is not a temporary flame, burning 
brightly for a while, and then giving place to 
returning darkness. It is rather a spark of fer- 
vent heat, as well as radiant light, with power 
to enkindle the common mass of human mind ; 
so that when it glimmers in its own decay, and 
finally goes out in death, no night follows, but 
it leaves the world all light, all on fire, from 
the potent contact of its own spirit. Bacon 
died ; but the human understanding, roused 
by the touch of his miraculous wand to a per- 
ception of the true philosophy and the just mode 
of inquiring after truth, has kept on its course 
successfully and gloriously. Newton died ; yet 
the courses of the spheres are still known, and 
they yet move on by the laws which he discov- 
ered, and in the orbits which he saw, and de- 
scribed for them, in the infinity of space. 

No two men now live, fellow-citizens, perhajjs 
it may be doubted whether any two men have 
ever lived in one age, who, more than those we 
now commemorate, have impressed on mankind 
their own sentiments in regard to politics and 
government, infused their own opinions more 
deeply into the opinions of others, or given a 
more lasting direction to the current of human 
thought. Their work doth not perish with 
them. The tree which they assisted to plant 
will flourish, although they water it and protect 
7 



Daniel Webster 

it no longer ; for it has struck its roots deep, it 
has sent them to the very centre ; no storm, 
not of force to burst the orb, can overturn it ; 
its branches spread wide ; they stretch their 
protecting arms broader and broader, and its 
top is destined to reach the heavens. We are 
not deceived. There is no delusion here. No 
age will come in which the American Revolu- 
tion will appear less than it is, one of the great- 
est events in human history. No age will come 
in which it shall cease to be seen and felt, on 
either continent, that a mighty step, a great 
advance, not only in American affairs, but in 
human affairs, was made on the 4th of July, 
1776. And no age will come, we trust, so igno- 
rant or so unjust as not to see and acknowledge 
the efficient agency of those we now honor in 
producing that momentous event. 

We are not assembled, therefore, fellow-citi- 
zens, as men overwhelmed with calamity by the 
sudden disruption of the ties of friendship or 
affection, or as in despair for the republic by 
the untimely blighting of its hopes. Death has 
not surprised us by an unseasonable blow. We 
have, indeed, seen the tomb close, but it has 
closed only over mature years, over long-pro- 
tracted public service, over the weakness of age, 
and over life itself only when the ends of living 
had been fulfilled. These suns, as they rose 
slowly and steadily, amidst clouds and storms, 
in their ascendant, so they have not rushed 
from their meridian to sink suddenly in the 



Adams and Jefferson 

west. Like the mildness, the serenity, the con- 
tinuing benignity of a summer's day, they have 
gone down with slow-descending, grateful, 
long-lingering light ; and now that they are 
beyond the visible margin of the world, good 
omens cheer us from ' ' the bright track of their 
fiery car" ! 

There were many points of similarity in the 
lives and fortunes of these great men. They 
belonged to the same profession, and had pur- 
sued its studies and its practice, for unequal 
lengths of time indeed, but with diligence and 
effect. Both were learned and able lawyers. 
They were natives and inhabitants, respec- 
tively, of those two of the Colonies which at 
the Revolution were the largest and most pow- 
erful, and which naturally had a lead in the 
political affairs of the times. When the Col- 
onies became in some degree united, by the 
assembling of a general Congress, they were 
brought to act together in its deliberations, not 
indeed at the same time, but both at early 
periods. Each had already manifested his at- 
tachment to the cause of the country, as well as 
his ability to maintain it, by printed addresses, 
public speeches, extensive correspondence, and 
whatever other mode could be adopted for the 
purpose of exposing the encroachments of the 
British Parliament, and animating the people 
to a manly resistance. Both were not only de- 
cided, but early, friends of Independence. 
While others yet doubted, they were resolved ; 
9 



Daniel Webster 

where others hesitated, they pressed forward. 
They were both members of the committee for 
preparing the Declaration of Independence, and 
they constituted the sub-committee appointed 
by the other members to make the draft. They 
left their seats in Congress, being called to 
other public employments, at periods not re- 
mote from each other, although one of them re- 
turned to it afterwards for a short time. Neither 
of them was of the assembly of great men 
which formed the present Constitution, and 
neither was at any time a member of Congress 
under its provisions. Both have been public 
ministers abroad, both Vice-Presidents and both 
Presidents of the United States. These coinci- 
dences are now singularly crowned and com- 
pleted. They have died together ; and they 
died on the anniversary of liberty. 

When many of us were last in this place, fel- 
low-citizens, it was on the day of that anniver- 
sary. We were met to enjoy the festivities be- 
longing to the occasion, and to manifest our 
grateful homage to our political fathers. We 
did not, we could not here, forget our venerable 
neighbor of Quincy. We knew that we w^ere 
standing, at a time of high and palmy prosper- 
ity, where he had stood in the hour of utmost 
peril ; that we saw nothing but liberty and 
security, where he had met the frown of power ; 
that we were enjoying every thing, where he 
had hazarded every thing ; and just and sin- 
cere plaudits rose to his name, from the crowds 

lO 



Adams and Jefferson 

which filled this area, and hung over these gal- 
leries. He whose grateful duty it was to speak 
to us,* on that day, of the virtues of our fathers, 
had, indeed, admonished us that time and years 
were about to level his venerable frame with 
the dust. But he bade us hope that ' ' the 
sound of a nation's joy, rushing from our cities, 
ringing from our valleys, echoing from our 
hills, might yet break the silence of his aged 
ear ; that the rising blessings of grateful mill- 
ions might yet visit with glad light his decay- 
ing vision." Alas! that vision was then clos- 
ing for ever. Alas ! the silence which was then 
settling on that aged ear was an everlasting 
silence ! For, lo ! in the very moment of our 
festivities, his freed spirit ascended to God who 
gave it ! Human aid and human solace ter- 
minate at the grave ; or we would gladly have 
borne him upward, on a nation's outspread 
hands ; we would have accompanied him, and 
with the blessings of millions and the prayers 
of millions, commended him to the Divine 
favor. 

While still indulging our thoughts, on the 
coincidence of the death of this venerable man 
with the anniversary of Independence, we learn 
that Jefferson, too, has fallen ; and that these 
aged patriots, these illustrious fellow-laborers, 
have left our world together. May not such 
events raise the suggestion that they are not 

* Hon. Josiah Ouincy. 

II 



Daniel Webster 

undesigned, and that Heaven does so order 
things, as sometimes to attract strongly the at- 
tention and excite the thoughts of men ? The 
occurrence has added new interest to our anni- 
versary, and will be remembered in all time to 
come. 

The occasion, fellow-citizens, requires some 
account of the lives and services of John Adams 
and Thomas Jefferson. This duty must neces- 
sarily be performed with great brevity, and in 
the discharge of it I shall be obliged to confine 
myself, principally, to those parts of their his- 
tory and character which belonged to them as 
public men. 

John Adams was born at Quincy, then part of 
the ancient town of Braintree, on the 19th day 
of October (old style), 1735. He was a descend- 
ant of the Puritans, his ancestors having early 
emigrated from England, and settled in Massa- 
chusetts. Discovering in childhood a strong 
love of reading and of knowledge, together 
wnth marks of great strength and activity of 
mind, proper care was taken by his worthy 
father to provide for his education. He pur- 
sued his youthful studies in Braintree, under 
Mr. Marsh, a teacher whose fortune it was that 
Josiah Quincy, Jr., as well as the subject of 
these remarks, should receive from him his in- 
struction in the rudiments of classical literature. 
Having been admitted, in 1751, a member of 
Harvard College, Mr. Adams was graduated, 
12 



Adams and Jefferson 

in course, in 1755 ; and on the catalogue of that 
institution, his name, at the time of his death, 
was second among the Hying Alumni, being 
preceded only by that of the venerable Holyoke. 
With what degree of reputation he left the Uni- 
versity is not now precisely known. We know 
only that he was distinguished in a class which 
numbered Locke and Heramenway among its 
members. Choosing the law for his profession, 
he commenced and prosecuted its studies at 
Worcester, under the direction of Samuel Put- 
nam, a gentleman whom he has himself de- 
scribed as an acute man, an able and learned 
lawyer, and as being in large professional prac- 
tice at that time. In 1758 he was admitted to 
the bar, and entered upon the practice of the 
law in Braintree. He is understood to have 
made his first considerable effort, or to have at- 
tained his first signal success, at Plymouth, on 
one of those occasions which furnish the earliest 
opportunity for distinction to many young men 
of the profession, a jury trial, and a criminal 
cause. His business naturally grew with his 
reputation, and his residence in the vicinity 
afforded the opportunity, as his growing emi- 
nence gave the power, of entering on a larger 
field of practice in the capital. In 1766 he re- 
moved his residence to Boston, still continuing 
his attendance on the neighboring circuits, and 
not unf requently called to remote parts of the 
Province. In 1770 his professional firmness 
was brought to a test of some severity, on the 



Daniel Webster 

application of the British officers and soldiers 
to undertake their defence, on the trial of the 
indictments found against them on account of 
the transactions of the memorable 5th of March. 
He seems to have thought, on this occasion, 
that a man can no more abandon the proper 
duties of his profession, than he can abandon 
other duties. The event proved, that, as he 
judged well for his own reputation, so, too, he 
judged well for the interest and permanent 
fame of his country. The result of that trial 
proved, that, notwithstanding the high degree 
of excitement then existing in consequence of 
the measures of the British government, a jury 
of Massachusetts would not deprive the most 
reckless enemies, even the officers of that stand- 
ing army quartered among them, which they so 
perfectly abhorred, of any part of that protec- 
tion which the law, in its mildest and most in- 
dulgent interpretation, affords to persons ac- 
cused of crimes. 

Without following Mr. Adams's professional 
course further, suffice it to say, that on the first 
establishment of the judicial tribunals under 
the authority of the State, in 1776, he received 
an offer of the high and responsible station of 
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Massa- 
chusetts. But he was destined for another and 
a different career. From early life the bent of 
his mind was toward politics ; a propensity 
which the state of the times, if it did not create, 
doubtless very much strengthened. Public 
14 



Adams and Jefferson 

subjects must have occupied the thoughts and 
filled up the conversation in the circles in which 
he then moved ; and the interesting questions 
at that time just arising could not but seize on 
a mind like his, ardent, sanguine, and patriotic. 
A letter, fortunately preserved, written by him 
at Worcester, so early as the 12th of October, 
1755, is a proof of very comprehensive views, 
and uncommon depth of reflection, in a young 
man not yet quite twenty. In this letter he 
predicted the transfer of power, and the estab- 
lishment of a new seat of empire in America ; 
he predicted, also, the increase of population in 
the Colonies : and anticipated their naval dis- 
tinction, and foretold that all Europe combined 
could not subdue them. All this is said, not on 
a public occasion or for effect, but in the style 
of sober and friendly correspondence, as the re- 
sult of his own thoughts. ' ' I sometimes retire , ' ' 
said he, at the close of the letter, " and, laying 
things together, form some reflections pleasing 
to myself. The produce of one of these rev- 
eries you have read above. ' ' This prognostica- 
tion so early in his own life, so early in the his- 
tory of the country, of independence, of vast 
increase of numbers, of naval force, of such 
augmented power as might defy all Europe, is 
remarkable. It is more remarkable that its 
author should live to see fulfilled to the letter 
what could have seemed to others, at the time, 
but the extravagance of youthful fancy. His 
earliest political feelings were thus strongly 
15 



Daniel Webster 

American, and from this ardent attachment to 
his native soil he never departed. 

While still living at Quincy, and at the age 
of twenty-four, Mr. Adams was present, in this 
town, at the argument before the Supreme 
Court respecting Writs of Assistatice, and 
heard the celebrated and patriotic speech of 
James Otis. Unquestionably, that was a mas- 
terly performance. No flighty declamation 
about liberty, no superficial discussion of popu- 
lar topics, it was a learned, penetrating, con- 
vincing, constitutional argument, expressed m 
a strain of high and resolute patriotism, He 
grasped the question then pending between 
England and her Colonies with the strength of 
a lion ; and if he sometimes sported, it was only 
because the lion himself is sometimes playful. 
Its success appears to have been as great as its 
merits, and its impression was widely felt. Mr. 
Adams himself seems never to have lost the 
feeling it produced, and to have entertained 
constantly the fullest conviction of its important 
effects. " I do say," he observes, " in the most 
solemn manner, that Mr. Otis's Oration against 
Writs of Assistance breathed into this nation 
the breath of life." 

In 1765 Mr. Adams laid before the public, 
anonymously, a series of essays, afterwards 
collected in a volume in London, under the 
title of A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal 
Law. The object of this work was to show 
that our New England ancestors, in consenting 
16 



Adams and Jefferson 

to exile themselves from their native land, were 
actuated mainly by the desire of delivering 
themselves from the power of the hierarchy, 
and from the monarchical and aristocratical sys- 
tems of the other continent ; and to make this 
truth bear with effect on the politics of the 
times. Its tone is uncommonly bold and ani- 
mated for that period. He calls on the people, 
not only to defend, but to study and under- 
stand, their rights and privileges ; urges ear- 
nestly the necessity of diffusing general knowl- 
edge ; invokes the clergy and the bar, the col- 
leges and academies, and all others who have 
the ability and the means to expose the insidi- 
ous designs of arbitrary power, to resist its ap- 
proaches, and to be persuaded that there is a 
settled design on foot to enslave all America. 
"Be it remembered," says the author, "that 
liberty must, at all hazards, be supported. We 
have a right to it, derived from our Maker. 
But if we had not, our fathers have earned and 
bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, 
their estates, their pleasure, and their blood. 
And liberty cannot be preserved without a gen- 
eral knowledge among the people, who have a 
right, from the frame of their nature, to knowl- 
edge, as their great Creator, who does nothing 
in vain, has given them understandings and a 
desire to know\ But, besides this, they have a 
right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasi- 
ble, divine right, to that most dreaded and en- 
vied kind of knowledge, I mean of the charac- 
17 



Daniel Webster 

ters and conduct of their rulers. Rulers are no 
more than attorneys, agents, and trustees for 
the people ; and if the cause, the interest and 
trust, is insidiously betrayed, or wantonly trifled 
away, the people have a right to revoke the 
authority that they themselves have deputed, 
and to constitute abler and better agents, attor- 
neys, and trustees." 

The citizens of this town conferred on Mr. 
Adams his first political distinction, and clothed 
him with his first political trust, by electing 
him one of their representatives, in 1770. Be- 
fore this time he had become extensively known 
throughout the Province, as well by the part he 
had acted in relation to public affairs, as by the 
exercise of his professional ability. He was 
among those who took the deepest interest 
in the controversy with England, and whether 
in or out of the legislature, his time and 
talents were alike devoted to the cause. In 
the year 1773 and 1774 he was chosen a 
Councillor by the members of the General 
Court, but rejected by Governor Hutchinson in 
the former of those years, and by Governor 
Gage in the latter. 

The time was now at hand, however, when 
the affairs of the Colonies urgently demanded 
united counsels throughout the country. An 
open rupture with the parent state appeared in- 
evitable, and it was but the dictate of prudence 
that those who were united by a common inter- 
est and a common danger should protect that 
18 



Adams and Jefferson 

interest and guard against that danger by- 
united etforts. A general Congress of Dele- 
gates from all the Colonies having been pro- 
posed and agreed to, the House of Representa- 
tives, on the 17th of June, 1774, elected James 
Bowdoin, Thomas Cushing, Samuel Adams, 
John Adams, and Robert Treat Paine, dele- 
gates from Massachusetts. This appointment 
was made at Salem, where the General Court 
had been convened by Governor Gage, in the 
last hour of the existence of a House of Repre- 
sentatives under the Provincial Charter. While 
engaged in this important business, the Gov- 
ernor, having been informed of what was pass- 
ing, sent his secretary with a message dissolv- 
ing the General Court. The secretary, finding 
the door locked, directed the messenger to go 
in and inform the Speaker that the secretary 
w^as at the door with a message from the Gov- 
ernor. The messenger returned, and informed 
the secretary that the orders of the House were 
that the doors should be kept fast ; whereupon 
the secretary soon after read upon the stairs a 
proclamation dissolving the General Court. 
Thus terminated, for ever, the actual exercise 
of the political power of England in or over 
Massachusetts. The four last-named delegates 
accepted their appointments, and took their 
seats in Congress the first day of its meeting, 
the 5th of September, 1774, in Philadelphia. 

The proceedings of the first Congress are well 
known, and have been universally admired. 
19 



Daniel Webster 

It is in vain that we would look for superior 
proofs of wisdom, talent, and patriotism. Lord 
Chatham said, that, for himself, he must declare 
that he had studied and admired the free states 
of antiquity, the master states of the world, but 
that for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, 
and wisdom of conclusion, no body of men 
could stand in preference to this Congress. It 
is hardly inferior praise to say, that no produc- 
tion of that great man himself can be pro- 
nounced superior to several of the papers pub- 
lished as the proceedings of this most able, most 
firm, most patriotic assembly. There is, in- 
deed, nothing superior to them in the range of 
political disquisition. They not only embrace, 
illustrate, and enforce every thing which politi- 
cal philosophy, the love of liberty, and the spirit 
of free inquiry had antecedently produced, but 
they add new and striking views of their own, 
and apply the whole, with irresistible force, in 
support of the cause which had drawn them 
together. 

Mr. Adams was a constant attendant on the 
deliberations of this body, and bore an active 
part in its important measures. He was of the 
committee to state the rights of the Colonies, 
and of that also which reported the Address to 
the King. 

As it was in the Continental Congress, fellow- 
citizens, that those whose deaths have given 
rise to this occasion w^ere first brought together, 
and called upon to unite their industry and 

20 



Adams and Jefferson 

their ability in the service of the country, let us 
now turn to the other of these distinguished 
men, and take a brief notice of his life up to the 
period when he appeared within the walls of 
Congress. 

Thomas Jefferson, descended from ancestors 
who had been settled in Virginia for some gen- 
erations, was born near the spot on which he 
died, in the county of Albemarle, on the 2d of 
April (old style), 1743. His youthful studies 
were pursued in the neighborhood of his father's 
residence until he was removed to the College 
of William and Mary, the highest honors of 
which he in due time received. Having left 
the College with reputation, he applied himself 
to the study of the law under the tuition of 
George Wythe, one of the highest judicial 
names of which that State can boast. At an 
early age he was elected a member of the legis- 
lature, in which he had no sooner appeared 
than he distinguished himself by knowledge, 
capacity, and promptitude. 

Mr. Jefferson appears to have been imbued 
with an early love of letters and science, and to 
have cherished a strong disposition to pursue 
these objects. To the physical sciences, espe- 
cially, and to ancient classic literature, he is 
understood to have had a warm attachment, 
and never entirely to have lost sight of them in 
the midst of the busiest occupations. But the 
times were times for action, rather than for con- 
templation. The country was to be defended. 



Daniel Webster 

and to be saved, before it could be enjoyed. 
Philosophic leisure and literary pursuits, and 
even the objects of professional attention, were 
all necessarily postponed to the urgent calls of 
the public service. The exigency of the coun- 
try made the same demand on Mr. Jefferson 
that it made on others who had the ability and 
the disposition to serve it ; and he obeyed the 
call ; thinking and feeling in this respect with 
the great Roman orator : " Quis enim est tarn 
cupidus in perspicienda cognoscendaque rerum 
natura, ut, si ei tractanti contemplantique res 
cognitione dignissimas subito sit allatum peri- 
culum discrimenque patriae, cui subvenire opitu- 
larique possit, non ilia omnia relinquat atque ab- 
jiciat, etiam si dinumerare se stellas, aut metiri 
mundi magnitudinem posse arbitretur ?" 

Entering with all his heart into the cause of 
liberty, his ability, patriotism, and power with 
the pen naturally drew upon him a large par- 
ticipation in the most important concerns. 
Wherever he was, there was found a soul de- 
voted to the cause, power to defend and main- 
tain it, and willingness to incur all its hazards. 
In 1774 he published a Summary View of the 
Rights of British America, a valuable produc- 
tion among those intended to show the dangers 
which threatened the liberties of the country, 
and to encourage the people in their defence. 
In June, 1775, he was elected a member of the 
Continental Congress, as successor to Peyton 
Randolph, who had resigned his place on ac- 
22 



Adams and Jefferson 

count of ill health, and took his seat in that 
t)ody on the 21st of the same month. 

And now, fellow-citizens, without pursuing 
the biography of these illustrious men further, 
for the present, let us turn otir attention to 
the most prominent act of their lives, their 
participation in the Declaration of Independ- 
ence. 

Preparatory to the introduction of that im- 
portant measure, a committee, at the head of 
which was Mr. Adams, had reported a resolu- 
tion, which Congress adopted on the loth ot 
May, recommending, in substance, to all the 
Colonies which had not already established gov- 
ernments suited to the exigencies of their 
affairs, to adopt such gover7i7nent as would, 
m the opinion of the represe?itatives of the 
people, best conduce to the happiness and 
safety of their constitutents iji particular, 
and America itt general. 

This significant vote was soon followed by 
the direct proposition which Richard Henry 
Lee had the honor to submit to Congress, by 
resolution, on the 7th day of June. The pub- 
lished journal does not expressly state it, but 
there is no doubt, I suppose, that this resolution 
was in the same words, when originally sub- 
mitted by Mr. Lee, as when finally passed. 
Having been discussed on Saturday, the 8th, 
and Monday, the loth of June, this resolution 
was on the last mentioned day postponed for 
further consideration to the first day of July ; 



Daniel Webster 

and at the same time it was voted, that a com- 
mittee be appointed to prepare a Declaration to 
the eflFect of the resolution. This committee 
\yas elected by ballot, on the following day, and 
consisted of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, 
Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Rob- 
ert R. Livingston. 

It is usual, when committees are elected by 
ballot, that their members should be arranged 
in order, according to the number of votes 
which each has received. Mr. Jefferson, there- 
fore, had received the highest, and Mr. Adams 
the next highest number of votes. The difference 
is said to have been but of a single vote. Mr. 
Jefferson and Mr. Adams, standing thus at the 
head of the committee, were requested by the 
other members to act as a sub-committee to pre- 
pare the draft ; and Mr. Jefferson drew up the 
paper. The original draft, as brought by him 
from his study, and submitted to the other 
members of the committee, with interlineations 
in the handwriting of Dr. Franklin, and others 
in that of Mr. Adams, was in Mr. Jefferson's 
possession at the time of his death. The merit 
of this paper is Mr. Jefferson's. Some changes 
were made in it at the suggestion of other 
members of the committee, and others by Con- 
gress while it was under discussion. But none 
of them altered the tone, the frame, the arrange- 
ment, or the general character of the instru- 
ment. As a composition, the Declaration is 
Mr. Jefferson's. It is the production of his 
24 



Adams and Jefferson 

mind, and the high honor of it belongs to him, 
clearly and absolutely. 

It has sometimes been said, as if it were a 
derogation from the merits of this paper, that it 
contains nothing new ; that it only states 
grounds of proceeding, and presses topics of 
argument, which had often been stated and 
pressed before. But it was not the object of 
the Declaration to produce any thing new. It 
was not to invent reasons for independence, 
but to state those which governed the Congress. 
For great and sufficient causes, it was proposed 
to declare independence ; and the proper busi- 
ness of the paper to be drawn was to set forth 
those causes, and justify the authors of the 
measure, in any event of fortune, to the 
country and to posterity. The cause of 
American independence, moreover, was now 
to be presented to the world in such man- 
ner, if it might so be, as to engage its sym- 
pathy, to command its respect, to attract its ad- 
miration ; and in an assembly of most able and 
distinguished men, Thomas Jefferson had the 
high honor of being the selected advocate of 
this cause. To say that he performed his great 
work well, would be doing him injustice. To 
say that he did excellently well, admirably well, 
would be inadequate and halting praise. Let 
us rather say, that he so discharged the duty 
assigned him, that all Americans may well re- 
joice that the work of drawing the title-deed of 
their liberties devolved upon him. 



Daniel Webster 

With all its merits, there are those who have 
thought that there was one thing in the Dec- 
laration to be regretted ; and that is, the as- 
perity and apparent anger with which it speaks 
of the person of the king ; the industrious abil- 
ity with which it accumulates and charges upon 
him all the injuries which the Colonies had suf- 
fered from the mother country. Possibly some 
degree of injustice, now or hereafter, at home 
or abroad, may be done to the character of Mr. 
Jefferson, if this part of the Declaration be not 
placed in its proper light. Anger or resent- 
ment, certainly much less personal reproach 
and invective, could not properly find place in 
a composition of such high dignity, and of such 
lofty and permanent character, 

A single reflection on the original ground of 
dispute between England and the Colonies is 
sufficient to remove any unfavorable impression 
in this respect. 

The inhabitants of all the Colonies, while 
Colonies, admitted themselves bound by their 
allegiance to the king ; but they disclaimed alto- 
gether the authority of Parliament ; holding 
themselves, in this respect, to resemble the con- 
dition of Scotland and Ireland before the re- 
spective unions of those kingdoms with Eng- 
land, when they acknowledged allegiance to 
the same king, but had each its separate legis- 
lature. The tie, therefore, which our Revolu- 
tion was to break did not subsist between us 
and the British Parliament, or between us and 
26 



Adams and Jefferson 

the British government in the aggregate, but 
directly between us and the king himself. The 
Colonies had never admitted themselves sub- 
ject to Parliament. That was precisely the 
point of the original controversy. They had 
uniformly denied that Parliament had authority 
to make laws for them. There was, therefore, 
no subjection to Parliament to be thrown off. 
But allegiance to the king did exist, and had 
been uniformly acknowledged ; and down to 
1775 the most solemn assurances had been given 
that it was not intended to break that alle- 
giance, or to throw it off. Therefore, as the di- 
rect object and only effect of the Declaration, 
according to the principles on which the con- 
troversy had been maintained on our part, were 
to sever the tie of allegiance which bound us to 
the king, it was properly and necessarily found- 
ed on acts of the crown itself, as its justifying 
causes. Parliament is not so much as men- 
tioned in the whole instrument. When odious 
and oppressive acts are referred to, it is done 
by charging the king with confederating with 
others "in pretended acts of legislation ;" the 
object being constantly to hold the king himself 
directly responsible for those measures which 
were the grounds of separation. Even the 
precedent of the English Revolution was not 
overlooked, and in this case, as well as in that, 
occasion was found to say that the king had 
abdicated the government. Consistency with 
the principles upon which resistance began, and 
27 



Daniel Webster 

with all the previous state papers issued by- 
Congress, required that the Declaration should 
be bottomed on the misgovernment of the king ; 
and therefore it was properly framed with that 
aim and to that end. The king was known, in- 
deed, to have acted, as in other cases, by his 
ministers, and with his Parliament ; but as our 
ancestors had never admitted themselves subject 
either to ministers or to Parliament, there were 
no reasons to be given for now refusing obedi- 
ence to their authority. This clear and obvious 
necessity of founding the Declaration on the 
misconduct of the king himself, gives to that in- 
strument its personal application, and its char- 
acter of direct and pointed accusation. 

The Declaration having been reported to 
Congress by the committee, the resolution itself 
was taken up and debated on the first day of 
July, and again on the second, on which last 
day it was agreed to and adopted, in these 
words : 

" Resolved, That these united Colonies are, 
and of right ought to be, free and independent 
States ; that they are absolved from all alle- 
giance to the British crown, and that all political 
connection between them and the state of Great 
Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." 

Having thus passed the main resolution. Con- 
gress proceeded to consider the reported draught 
of the Declaration. It was discussed on the 
second, and third, and fourth days of the 
month, in committee of the whole ; and on the 

2S 



Adams and Jefferson 

last of those days, being reported from that 
committee, it received the final approbation and 
sanction of Congress. It was ordered, at the 
same time, that copies be sent to the several 
States, and that it be proclaimed at the head of 
the army. The Declaration thus published did 
not bear the names of the members, for as yet 
it had not been signed by them. It was au- 
thenticated, like other papers of the Congress, 
by the signatures of the President and Secre- 
tary. On the igth of July, as appears by the 
secret journal. Congress " Resolved, That the 
Declaration, passed on the fourth, be fairly en- 
grossed on parchment, with the title and style 
of ' The unanimous Declaration of the Thir- 
teen United States of America; ' and that 
the same, when engrossed, be signed by every 
member of Congress." And on the second day 
OF August following, "the Declaration, being 
engrossed and compared at the table, was 
signed by the members. ' ' So that it happens, 
fellow-citizens, that we pay these honors to 
their memory on the anniversary of that day 
(2d of August) on which these great men ac- 
tually signed their names to the Declaration. 
The Declaration was thus made, that is, it 
passed and was adopted as an act of Congress, 
on the fourth of July ; it was then signed, and 
certified by the President and Secretary, like 
other acts. The Fourth of July, therefore, is 
the anniversary of the Declaration. But the 
signatures of the members present were made 
29 



Daniel Webster 

to it, being then engrossed on parchment, on 
the second day of August. Absent members 
afterwards signed, as they came in ; and indeed 
it bears the names of some who were not chosen 
members of Congress until after the fourth of 
July. The interest belonging to the subject 
will be sufficient, I hope, to justify these details. 

The Congress of the Revolution, fellow-citi- 
zens, sat with closed doors, and no report of its 
debates was ever made. The discussion, there- 
fore, which accompanied this great measure, 
has never been preserved, except in memory 
and by tradition. But it is, I believe, doing no 
injustice to others to say, that the general opin- 
ion was, and uniformly has been, that in de- 
bate, on the side of independence, John Adams 
had no equal. The great author of the Declara- 
tion himself has expressed that opinion uni- 
formly and strongly. " John Adams," said he, 
in the hearing of him who has now the honor to 
address you, " John Adams was our colossus on 
the floor. Not graceful, not elegant, not always 
fluent, in his public addresses, he yet came out 
with a power, both of thought and of expres- 
sion, which moved us from our seats." 

For the part which he w^as here to perform, 
Mr. Adams doubtless was eminently fitted. He 
possessed a bold spirit, which disregarded dan- 
ger, and a sanguine reliance on the goodness of 
the cause, and the virtues of the people, which 
led him to overlook all obstacles. His charac- 
ter, too, had been formed in troubled times. 
30 



Adams and Jefferson 

He had been rocked in the early storms of the 
controversy, and had acquired a decision and a 
hardihood proportioned to the severity of the 
discipline which he had undergone. 

He not only loved the American cause de- 
voutly, but had studied and understood it. It 
was all familiar to him. He had tried his pow- 
ers on the questions which it involved, often 
and in various ways ; and had brought to their 
consideration whatever of argument or illustra- 
tion the history of his own country, the history 
of England, or the stores of ancient or of legal 
learning could furnish. Every grievance enu- 
merated in the long catalogue of the Declara- 
tion had been the subject of his discussion, and 
the object of his remonstrance and reprobation. 
From 1760, the Colonies, the rights of the Col- 
onies, the liberties of the Colonies, and the 
wrongs inflicted on the Colonies, had engaged 
his constant attention ; and it has surprised 
those who have had the opportunity of witness- 
ing it, with w4iat full remembrance and with 
what prompt recollection he could refer, in his 
extreme old age, to every act of Parliament 
affecting the Colonies, distinguishing and stat- 
ing their respective titles, sections, and pro- 
visions ; and to all the Colonial memorials, re- 
monstrances, and petitions, with whatever else 
belonged to the intimate and exact history of 
the times from that year to 1775. It was, in his 
own judgment, between these years that the 
American people came to a full understanding 
31 



Daniel Webster 

and thorough knowledge of their rights, and to 
a fixed resolution of maintaining them ; and 
bearing himself an active part in all important 
transactions, the controversy with England 
being then in effect the business of his life, 
facts, dates, and particulars made an impres- 
sion which was never effaced. He was pre- 
pared, therefore, by education and discipline, 
as well as by natural talent and natural tem- 
perament, for the part which he was now to act. 
The eloquence of Mr. Adams resembled his 
general character, and formed, indeed, a part 
of it. It was bold, manly, and energetic ; and 
such the crisis required. When public bodies 
are to be addressed on momentous occasions, 
when great interests are at stake, and strong 
passions excited, nothing is valuable in speech 
farther than as it is connected with high intel- 
lectual and moral endowments. Clearness, 
force, and earnestness are the qualities which 
produce conviction. True eloquence, indeed, 
does not consist in speech. It cannot be 
brought from far. Labor and learning may 
toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words 
and j^hrases may be marshalled in every way, 
but they cannot compass it. It must exist in 
the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. 
Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp 
of declamation, all may aspire to it ; they can- 
not reach it. It comes, if it come at all, like 
the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, 
or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with 
32 



Adams and Jefferson 

spontaneous, original , native force. The graces 
taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and 
studied contrivances of speech, shock and dis- 
gust men, when their own lives, and the fate of 
their wives, their children, and their country, 
hang on the decision of the hour. Then words 
have lost their power, rhetoric is vain, and all 
elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius 
itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the 
presence of higher qualities. Then patriotism 
is eloquent ; then self-devotion is eloquent. 
The clear conception, outrunning the deduc- 
tions of logic, the high purpose, the firm re- 
solve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the 
tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every 
feature, and urging the w^hole man onward, 
right onward to his object — this, this is elo- 
quence ; or rather it is something greater and 
higher than all eloquence, it is action, noble, 
sublime, godlike action. 

In July, 1776, the controversy had passed the 
stage of argument. An appeal had been made 
to force, and opposing armies were in the field. 
Congress, then, was to decide whether the tie 
which had so long bound us to the parent state 
was to be severed at once, and severed for ever. 
All the Colonies had signified their resolution 
to abide by this decision, and the people looked 
for it with the most intense anxiety. And 
surely, fellow-citizens, never, never were men 
called to a more important political delibera- 
tion. If we contemplate it from the point where 
33 



Daniel Webster 

they then stood, no question could be more full 
of interest ; if we look at it now, and judge of 
its importance by its effects, it appears of still 
greater magnitude. 

Let us, then, bring before us the assembly, 
which was about to decide a question thus big 
with the fate of empire. Let us open their 
doors and look in upon their deliberations. Let 
us survey the anxious and care-worn counte- 
nances, let us hear the firm-toned voices, of this 
band of patriots. 

Hancock presides over the solemn sitting ; 
and one of those not yet prepared to pronounce 
for absolute independence is on the floor, and 
is urging his reasons for dissenting from the 
declaration. 

" Let us pause ! This step, once taken, can- 
not be retraced. This resolution, once passed, 
will cut off all hope of reconciliation. If success 
attend the arms of England, we shall then be 
no longer Colonies, with charters and with priv- 
ileges ; these will all be forfeited by this act ; 
and we shall be in the condition of other con- 
quered people, at the mercy of the conquerors. 
For ourselves, we may be ready to run the haz- 
ard ; but are we ready to carry the country to 
that length ? Is success so probable as to justify 
it ? Where is the military, where the naval 
power, by w^hich we are to resist the whole 
strength of the arm of England, for she will ex- 
ert that strength to the utmost ? Can we rely 
on the constancy and perseverance of the peo- 
34 



Adams and Jefferson 

pie ? or will they not act as the people of other 
countries have acted, and, wearied with a long 
war, submit, in the end, to a worse oppression ? 
While we stand on our old ground, and insist 
on redress of grievances, we know we are right, 
and are not answerable for consequences. 
Nothing, then, can be imputed to us. But if 
we now change our object, carry our preten- 
sions farther, and set up for absolute indepen- 
dence, we shall lose the sympathy of mankind. 
We shall no longer be defending what we pos- 
sess, but struggling for something which we 
never did possess, and which we have solemnly 
and uniformly disclaimed all intention of pur- 
suing, from the very outset of the troubles. 
Abandoning thus our old ground, of resistance 
only to arbitrary acts of oppression, the nations 
will believe the whole to have been mere pre- 
tence, and the}^ will look on us, not as injured, 
but as ambitious subjects. I shudder before 
this responsibility. It will be on us, if, relin- 
quishing the ground on which we have stood so 
long, and stood so safely, w^e now proclaim in- 
dependence, and carry on the war for that ob- 
ject, while these cities burn, these pleasant 
fields whiten and bleach with the bones of their 
owmers, and these streams run blood. It will 
be upon us, it will be upon us, if, failing to 
maintain this unseasonable and ill-judged dec- 
laration, a sterner despotism, maintained by 
military power, shall be established over our 
posterity, when w^e ourselves, given up by an 
35 



Daniel Webster 

exhausted, a harassed, a misled people, shall 
have expiated our rashness and atoned for our 
presumption on the scaffold," 

It was for Mr. Adams to reply to arguments 
like these. We know his opinions, and we 
know his character. He would commence with 
liis accustomed directness and earnestness. 

" Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, 
I give my hand and my heart to this vote. It 
is true, indeed, that in the beginning we aimed 
not at independence. But there's a Divinity 
-which shapes our ends. The injustice of Eng- 
land has driven us to arms ; and, blinded to 
lier own interest for our good, she has obsti- 
nately persisted, till independence is now within 
our grasp. We have but to reach forth to it, 
and it is ours. Why, then, should we defer the 
Declaration ? Is any man so weak as now to 
hope for a reconciliation with England, which 
shall leave either safety to the country and its 
liberties, or safety to his own life and his own 
honor ? Are not you, Sir, who sit in that chair, 
is not he, our venerable colleague near you, are 
you not both already the proscribed and pre- 
destined objects of punishment and of ven- 
geance ? Cut off from all hope of royal clem- 
ency, what are you, what can you be, while the 
power of England remains, but outlaws ? If 
we postpone independence, do we mean to carry 
on, or to give up, the war ? Do we mean to 
submit to the measures of Parliament, Boston 
Port Bill and all ? Do we mean to submit, and 
36 



Adams and Jefferson 

consent that we ourselves shall be ground to- 
powder, and our country and its rights trodden 
down in the dust ? I know we do not mean to 
submit. We never shall submit. Do we in- 
tend to violate that most solemn obligation ever 
entered into by men, that plighting, before 
God, of our sacred honor to Washington, when, 
putting him forth to incur the dangers of war, 
as well as the political hazards of the times, we 
promised to adhere to him, in every extremity, 
with our fortunes and our lives ? I know there 
is not a man here, who would not rather see a. 
general conflagration sweep over the land, or 
an earthquake sink it, than one jot or tittle of 
that plighted faith fall to the ground. For my- 
self, having, twelve months ago, in this place, 
moved you, that George Washington be ap- 
pointed commander of the forces raised, or to 
be raised, for defence of American liberty, may 
my right hand forget her cunning, and my 
tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I 
hesitate or waver in the support I give him. 

"The war, then, must go on. We must 
fight it through. And if the war must go on, 
why put off longer the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence ? That measure will strengthen us. It 
will give us character abroad. The nations 
will then treat with us, which they never can 
do while we acknowledge ourselves subjects, in 
arms against our sovereign. Nay, I maintain 
that England herself will sooner treat for peace 
with us on the footing of independence, than 
37 



Daniel Webster 

consent, by repealing her acts, to acknowledge 
that her whole conduct towards us has been a 
course of injustice and oppression. Her pride 
will be less wounded by submitting to that 
course of things which now predestinates our 
independence, than by yielding the points in 
controversy to her rebellious subjects. The 
former she would regard as the result of for- 
tune ; the latter she would feel as her own deep 
disgrace. Why, then, why, then, Sir, do we 
not as soon as possible change this from a civil 
to a national war ? And since we must fight it 
through, why not put ourselves in a state to 
enjoy all the benefits of victory, if we gain the 
victory ? 

"If we fail, it can be no worse for us. But 
we shall not fail. The cause will raise up 
armies ; the cause will create navies. The 
people, the people, if we are true to them, will 
carry us, and will carry themselves, gloriously, 
through this struggle. I care not how fickle 
other people have been found. I know the 
people of these Colonies, and I know that re- 
sistance to British aggression is deep and set- 
tled in their hearts and cannot be eradicated. 
Every Colony, indeed, has expressed its will- 
ingness to follow, if we but take the lead. Sir, 
the Declaration will inspire the people with in- 
creased courage. Instead of a long and bloody 
war for the restoration of privileges, for redress 
of grievances, for chartered immunities, held 
under a British king, set before them the glori- 
38 



Adams and Jefferson 

ous object of entire independence, and it will 
breathe into them anew the breath of life. Read 
this Declaration at the head of the army ; every 
sword will be drawn from its scabbard, and the 
solemn vow uttered, to maintain it, or to perish 
on the bed of honor. Publish it from the pul- 
pit ; religion will approve it, and the love of 
religious liberty will cling round it, resolved to 
stand with it, or fall with it. Send it to the 
public halls ; proclaim it there ; let them hear 
it who heard the first roar of the enemy's can- 
non ; let them see it who saw their brothers and 
their sons fall on the field of Bunker Hill, and 
in the streets of Lexington and Concord, and 
the very walls will cry out in its support. 

" Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs, 
but I see, I see clearly, through this day's busi- 
ness. You and I, indeed, may rue it. We may 
not live to the time when this Declaration shall 
be made good. We may die ; die colonists ; 
die slaves ; die, it may be, ignominiously and 
on the scaffold. Be it so. Be it so. If it be 
the pleasure of Heaven that my country shall 
require the poor offering of my life, the victim 
shall be ready at the appointed hour of sacri- 
fice, come when that hour may. But while I do 
live, let me have a country, or at least the hope 
of a country, and that a free country. 

" But whatever may be our fate, be assured, 

be assured that this Declaration will stand. It 

may cost treasure, and it may cost blood ; but 

it will stand, and it will richly compensate for 

39 



Daniel Webster 

both. Through the thick gloom of the present, 
I see the brightness of the future, as the sun in 
heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an im- 
mortal day. When we are in our graves, our 
children will honor it. They will celebrate it 
with thanksgiving, with festivity, with bon- 
fires, and illuminations. On its annual return 
they will shed tears, copious, gushing tears, 
not of subjection and slavery, not of agony and 
distress, but of exultation, of gratitude, and of 
joy. Sir, before God, I believe the hour is 
come. My judgment approves this measure, 
and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, 
and all that I am, and all that I hope, in this 
life, I am now ready here to stake upon it ; and 
I leave off as I begun, that live or die, survive 
or perish, I am for the Declaration. It is my 
living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it 
shall be my dying sentiment. Independence, 
now, and independence for ever." 

And so that day shall be honored, illustrious 
prophet and patriot ! so that day shall be hon- 
ored, and as often as it returns, thy renown 
shall come along with it, and the glory of thy 
life, like the day of thy death, shall not fail 
from the remembrance of men. 

It would be unjust, fellow-citizens, on this oc- 
casion, while we express our veneration for him 
who is the immediate subject of these remarks, 
were we to omit a most respectful, affectionate, 
and grateful mention of those other great men, 
40 



Adams' and Jefferson 

his colleagues, who stood with him, and with 
the same spirit, the same devotion, took part in 
the interesting transaction. Hancock, the pro- 
scribed Hancock, exiled from his home by a 
military governor, cut off by proclamation from 
the mercy of the crown, — Heaven reserved for 
him the distinguished honor of putting this 
great question to the vote, and of writing his 
own name first, and most conspicuously, on 
that parchment which spoke defiance to the 
power of the crown of England, There, too, is 
the name of that other proscribed patriot, Sam- 
uel Adams, a man who hungered and thirsted 
for the independence of his country ; who 
thought the Declaration halted and lingered, 
being himself not only ready, but eager, for it,, 
long before it was proposed ; a man of the deep- 
est sagacity, the clearest foresight, and the pro- 
foundest judgment in men. And there is 
Gerry, himself among the earliest and the fore- 
most of the patriots, found, when the battle of 
Lexington summoned them to common coun- 
sels, by the side of Warren ; a man who lived 
to serve his countr^^ at home and abroad, and 
to die in the second place in the government. 
There, too, is the inflexible, the upright, the 
Spartan character, Robert Treat Paine. He 
also lived to serve his country through the 
struggle, and then withdrew from her councils, 
only that he might give his labors and his life 
to his native State, in another relation. These 
names, fellow-citizens, are the treasures of the 

41 



Daniel Webster 

Commonwealth ; and they are treasures which 
grow brighter by time. 

It is now necessary to resume the narrative, 
and to finish with great brevity the notice of 
the lives of those whose virtues and services we 
have met to commemorate. 

Mr. Adams remained in Congress from its 
first meeting till November, 1777, when he was 
appointed Minister to France. He proceeded 
on that service in the February following, em- 
barking in the frigate Boston, from the shore 
of his native town, at the foot of Mount Wollas- 
ton. The year following, he was appointed 
commissioner to treat of peace with England. 
Returning to the United States, he was a dele- 
gate from Braintree in the Convention for fram- 
ing the Constitution of this Commonwealth, in 
1780. At the latter end of the same year, he 
again went abroad in the diplomatic service 
of the country, and was employed at various 
courts, and occupied with various negotia- 
tions, until 1788. The particulars of these 
interesting and important services this oc- 
casion does not allow time to relate. In 1782 
he concluded our first treaty with Holland. His 
negotiations with that republic, his efforts to 
persuade the States-General to recognize our 
independence, his incessant and indefatigable 
exertions to represent the American cause 
favorably on the Continent, and to counteract 
the designs of its enemies, open and secret, and 
42 



Adams and Jefferson 

his successful undertaking to obtain loans, on 
the credit of a nation yet new and unknown, 
are among his most arduous, most useful, most 
honorable services. It was his fortune to bear 
a part in the negotiation for peace with Eng- 
land, and in something more than six years 
from the Declaration which he had so strenu- 
ously supported, he had the satisfaction of see- 
ing the minister plenipotentiary of the crown 
subscribe his name to the instrument which de- 
clared that his " Britannic ]\Iajesty acknowl- 
edged the United States to be free, sovereign, 
and independent." In these important trans- 
actions, Mr, Adams's conduct received the 
marked approbation of Congress and of the 
country. 

While abroad, in 1787, he published his De- 
fence of the American Constitutions ; a work 
of merit and ability, though composed with 
haste, on the spur of a particular occasion, in 
the midst of other occupations, and under cir 
cumstances not admitting of careful revision 
The immediate object of the work was to coun 
teract the weight of opinions advanced by sev 
eral popular European writers of that day 
M. Turgot, the Abbe de Mably, and Dr. Price 
at a time when the people of the United States 
were employed in forming and revising their 
systems of government. 

Returning to the United States in 178S, he 
found the new government about going into 
operation, and was himself elected the first 
43 



Daniel Webster 

Vice-Fresident, a situation which he filled with 
reputation for eight years, at the expiration of 
which he was raised to the Presidential chair, 
as immediate successor to the immortal Wash- 
ington. In this high station he was succeeded 
by Mr. Jefferson, after a memorable contro- 
versy between their respective friends, in 1801 ; 
and from that period his manner of life has 
been known to all who hear me. He has 4ived, 
for five-and-twenty years, with every enjoyment 
that could render old age happy. Not inatten- 
tive to the occurrences of the times, political 
cares have yet not materially, or for any long 
time, disturbed his repose. In 1820 he acted as 
elector of President and Vice-President, and in 
the same year we saw him, then at the age of 
eighty-five, a member of the Convention of this 
Commonwealth called to revise the Constitu- 
tion. Forty years before, he had been o. f 
those who formed that Constitution , .ua he 
had now the pleasure of witnessing that there 
was little which the people desired to change. 
Possessing all his faculties to the end of his long 
life, with an unabated love of reading and con- 
templation, in the centre of interesting circles 
of friendship and affection, he was blessed in 
his retirement with whatever of repose and 
felicity the condition of man allows. He had, 
also, other enjoyments. He saw around him 
that prosperity and general happiness which 
had been the object of his public cares and la- 
bors. No man ever beheld more clearly, and 
44 



Adams and Jefferson 

for a longer time, the great and beneficial 
effects of the services rendered by himself to 
his country. That liberty which he so early 
defended, that independence of which he was 
so able an advocate and supporter, he saw, we 
trust, firmly and securely established. "* The 
population of the country thickened around 
him faster, and extended wider, than his own 
sanguine predictions had anticipated ; and the 
wealth, respectability, and power of the nation 
sprang up to a magnitude which it is quite im- 
possible he could have expected to witness in 
his day. He lived also to behold those princi- 
ples of civil freedom which had been developed, 
established, and practicall}' applied in America, 
attract attention, command respect, and awaken 
imitation, in other regions of the globe ; and 
well might, and well did, he exclaim, " Where 
\x. : jhe consequences of the American Re volu- 
tion ="ei./ •'^" 

If any thing yet remain to fill this cup of hap- 
piness, let it be added, that he lived to see a 
great and intelligent people bestow the highest 
honor in their gift where he had bestowed his 
own kindest parental affections and lodged his 
fondest hopes. Thus honored in life, thus 
happy at death, he saw the jubilee, and he 
died ; and with the last prayers which trembled 
on his lips was the fervent supplication for his 
country, " Independence for ever ! " 

Mr, Jefferson, having been occupied in the 
45 



Daniel Webster 

years 1778 and 1779 in the important service of 
revising the laws of Virginia, was elected Gov- 
ernor of that State, as successor to Patrick 
Henry, and held the situation when the State 
was invaded by the British arms. In 17S1 he 
published his Notes on Virginia, a work which 
attracted attention in Europe as well as Ameri- 
ca, dispelled many misconceptions respecting 
this continent, and gave its author a place 
among men distinguished for science. In No- 
vember, 1783, he again took his seat in the Con- 
tinental Congress, but in the May following 
was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary, to act 
abroad, in the negotiation of commercial treaties 
with Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams, He pro- 
ceeded to France in execution of this mission, 
embarking at Boston ; and that was the only 
occasion on which he ever visited this place. 
In 1785 he was appointed Minister to France, 
the duties of which situation he continued to 
perform until October, 1789, when he obtained 
leave to retire, just on the eve of that tremen- 
dous revolution which has so much agitated the 
world in our times. Mr. Jefferson's discharge 
of his diplomatic duties was marked by great 
ability, diligence, and patriotism ; and while 
he resided at Paris, in one of the most interest- 
ing periods, his character for intelligence, his 
love of knowledge and of the society of learned 
men, distinguished him in the highest circles of 
the French capital. No court in Europe had at 
that time in Paris a representative commanding 
46 



Adams and Jefferson 

or enjoying higher regard, for political knowl- 
edge or for general attainments, than the min- 
ister of this then infant rei3ublic. Immediately 
on his return to his native country, at the or- 
ganization of the government under the present 
Constitution, his talents and experience recom- 
mended him to President Washington for the 
first office in his gift. He was placed at the 
head of the Department of State. In this situ- 
ation, also, he manifested conspicuous ability. 
His correspondence with the ministers of other 
powers residing here, and his instructions to 
our own diplomatic agents abroad, are among 
our ablest state papers. A thorough knowl- 
edge of the laws and usages of nations, perfect 
acquaintance with the immediate subject before 
him, great felicity, and still greater facility, in 
writing, show themselves in whatever effort his 
official situation called on him to make. It is 
believed by competent judges, that the diplo- 
matic intercourse of the government of the 
United States, from the first meeting of the 
Continental Congress in 1774 to the present 
time, taken together, would not suffer, in re- 
spect to the talent with which it has been con- 
ducted, by comparison with any thing which 
other and older governments can produce ; and 
to the attainment of this respectability and dis- 
tinction Mr. Jefferson has contributed his full 
part. 

On the retirement of General Washington 
from the Presidency, and the election of Mr. 
47 



Daniel Webster 

Adams to that office in 1797, he was chosen 
Vice-President. While presiding in this capac- 
ity over the deliberations of the Senate, he 
compiled and published a Manual of Parliamen- 
tary Practice, a work of more labor and more 
merit than is indicated by its size. It is now 
received as the general standard by which pro- 
ceedings are regulated, not only in both Houses 
of Congress, but in most of the other legislative 
bodies in the country. In 1801 he was elected 
President, in opposition to Mr. Adams, and re- 
elected in 1805, by a vote approaching towards 
unanimity. 

From the time of his final retirement from 
public life, in 1808, Mr. Jefferson lived as be- 
came a wise man. Surrounded by affectionate 
friends, his ardor in the pursuit of knowledge 
undiminished, with uncommon health and un- 
broken spirits, he was able to enjoy largely the 
rational pleasures of life, and to partake in that 
public prosperity which he had so much con- 
tributed to produce. His kindness and hos- 
pitality, the charm of his conversation, the ease 
of his manners, the extent of his acquirements, 
and, especially, the full store of Revolutionary 
incidents which he had treasured in his mem- 
ory, and which he knew when and how to dis- 
pense, rendered his abode in a high degree at- 
tractive to his admiring countrymen, while his 
high public and scientific character drew tow- 
ards him every intelligent and educated travel- 
ler from abroad. Both Mr. Adams and Mr. 
48 



Adams and Jefferson 

Jefferson had the pleasure of knowing that the 
respect which they so largely received was not 
paid to their official stations. They were not 
men made great by office ; but great men, on 
whom the country for its own benefit had con- 
ferred office. There was that in them which 
office did not give, and which the relinquish- 
ment of office did not, and could not, take away. 
In their retirement, in the midst of their fellow- 
citizens, themselves private citizens, they en- 
joyed as high regard and esteem as when filling 
the most important places of public trust. 

There remained to Mr. Jefferson yet one 
other work of patriotism and beneficence, the 
establishment of a university in his native State. 
To this object he devoted years of incessant 
and anxious attention, and by the enlightened 
liberality of the Legislature of Virginia, and 
the cooperation of other able and zealous 
friends, he lived to see it accomplished. Ma)^ 
all success attend this infant seminary ; and 
may those who enjoy its advantages, as often 
as their eyes shall rest on the neighboring 
height, recollect what they owe to their disin- 
terested and indefatigable benefactor ; and 
may letters honor him who thus labored in the 
cause of letters ! 

Thus useful, and thus respected, passed the 
old age of Thomas Jefferson. But time was on 
its ever-ceaseless wing, and was now bringing 
the last hour of this illustrious man. He savr 
its approach Avith undisturbed serenit}-. He 
49 



Daniel Webster 

counted the moments as they passed, and be- 
held that his last sands were falling. That 
day, too, was at hand which he had helped to 
make immortal. One wish, one hope, if it were 
not presumptuous, beat in his fainting breast. 
Could it be so, might it please God, he would 
desire once more to see the sun, once more to 
look abroad on the scene around him, on the 
great day of liberty. Heaven, in its mercy, 
fulfilled that prayer. He saw that sun, he en- 
joyed its sacred light, he thanked God for this 
mercy, and bowed his aged head to the grave. 
" Felix, non vitse tantum claritate, sed etiam 
opportunitate mortis. ' ' 

The last public labor of Mr. Jefferson natu- 
rally suggests the expression of the high praise 
which is due, both to him and to Mr. Adams, 
for their uniform and zealous attachment to 
learning, and to the cause of general knowl- 
edge. Of the advantages of learning, indeed, 
and of literary accomplishments, their own 
characters were striking recommendations and 
illustrations. They were scholars, ripe and 
good scholars ; widely acquainted with ancient, 
as well as modern literature, and not altogether 
uninstructed in the deeper sciences. Their ac- 
quirements, doubtless, were different, and so 
were the particular objects of their literary pur- 
suits ; as their tastes and characters, in these 
respects, differed like those of other men. 
Being, also, men of busy lives, with great ob- 
jects requiring action constantly before them, 
SO 



Adams and Jefferson 

their attainments in letters did not become 
showy or obtrusive. Yet I would hazard the 
opinion, that, if we could now ascertain all the 
causes which gave them eminence and distinc- 
tion in the midst of the great men with whom 
they acted, we should find not among the least, 
their early acquisitions in literature, the re- 
sources which it furnished, the promptitude and. 
facility which it communicated, and the wide 
field it opened for analogy and illustration ;, 
giving them thus, on every subject, a larger 
view and a broader range, as well for discus- 
sion as for the government of their own con- 
duct. 

Literature sometimes disgusts, and preten- 
sion to it much oftener disgusts, by appearing 
to hang loosely on the character, like some- 
thing foreign or extraneous, not a part, but an 
ill-adjusted appendage ; or by seeming to over- 
load and weigh it down by its unsightly bulk, 
like the productions of bad taste in architec- 
ture, where there is massy and cumbrous orna- 
ment without strength or solidity of column. 
This has exposed learning, and especially classi- 
cal learning, to reproach. Men have seen that 
it might exist without mental superiority, with- 
out vigor, without good taste, and without 
utility. But in such cases classical learning has 
only not inspired natural talent ; or, at most, it 
has but made original feebleness of intellect, 
and natural bluntness of perception, something 
more conspicuous. The question, after all, if it. 
51 



Daniel Webster 

T^e a question, is, whether literature, ancient as 
well as modern, does not assist a good under- 
standing, improve natural good taste, add pol- 
ished armor to native strength, and render its 
possessor, not only more capable of deriving 
private happiness from contemplation and re- 
flection, but more accomplished also for action 
in the affairs of life, and especially for public 
action. Those whose memories we now honor 
were learned men ; but their learning was kept 
in its proper place, and made subservient to 
the uses and objects of life. They were schol- 
ars, not common nor superficial ; but their 
scholarship was so in keeping with their char- 
acter, so blended and inwrought, that careless 
observers, or bad judges, not seeing an osten- 
tatious display of it, might infer that it did not 
exist ; forgetting, or not knowing, that classical 
learning in men who act in conspicuous public 
stations, perform duties which exercise the fac- 
ulty of writing, or address popular, delibera- 
tive, or judicial bodies, is often felt where it is 
little seen, and sometimes felt more effectually 
because it is not seen at all. 

But the cause of knowledge, in a more en- 
larged sense, the cause of general knowledge 
and of popular education, had no warmer 
friends, nor more powerful advocates, than Mr. 
Adams and Mr. Jefferson. On this foundation 
they knew the whole republican system rested ; 
and this great and all -important truth they 
strove to impress, by all the means in their 
52 



Adams and Jefferson 

power. In the early publication already re- 
ferred to, Mr. Adams expresses the strong and 
just sentiment, that the education of the poor 
is more important, even to the rich themselves, 
than all their own riches. On this great truth, 
indeed, is founded that unrivalled, that invalu- 
able political and moral institution, our own 
blessing and the glory of our fathers, the New 
England system of free schools. 

As the promotion of knowledge had been the 
object of their regard through life, so these 
great men made it the subject of their testa- 
mentary bounty. Mr. Jefferson is understood 
to have bequeathed his library to the Univer- 
sity of Virginia, and that of Mr. Adams is be- 
stowed on the inhabitants of Quincy. 

Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson, fellow-citizens, 
were successively Presidents of the United 
States. The comparative merits of their re- 
spective administrations for a long time agi- 
tated and divided public opinion. They were 
rivals, each supported by numerous and power- 
ful portions of the people, for the highest office. 
This contest, partly the cause and partly the 
consequence of the long existence of two great 
political parties in the country, is now part of 
the history of our government. We may natu- 
rally regret that any thing should have occurred 
to create difference and discord between those 
who had acted harmoniously and efficiently in 
the great concerns of the Revolution. But this 
is not the time, nor this the occasion, for enter- 
53 



Daniel Webster 

ing into the grounds of that difference, or for 
attempting to discuss the merits of the ques- 
tions which it involves. As practical questions, 
they were canvassed when the measures which 
they regarded were acted on and adopted ; and 
as belonging to history, the time has not come 
for their consideration. 

It is, perhaps, not wonderful, that, when the 
Constitution of the United States first went into 
operation, different opinions should be enter- 
tained as to the extent of the powers conferred 
by it. Here was a natural source of diversity 
of sentiment. It is still less wonderful, that 
that event, nearly contemporary with our gov- 
ernment under the present Constitution, which 
so entirely shocked all Europe, and disturbed 
our relations with her leading powers, should 
be thought, by different men, to have different 
bearings on our own prosperity; and that the 
early measures adopted by the government of 
the United States, in consequence of this new 
state of things, should be seen in opposite 
lights. It is for the future historian, when what 
now remains of prejudice and misconception 
shall have passed away, to state these different 
opinions, and pronounce impartial judgment. 
In the mean time, all good men rejoice, and 
well may rejoice, that the sharpest differences 
sprung out of measures which, whether right 
or wrong, have ceased with the exigencies that 
gave them birth, and have left no permanent 
effect, either on the Constitution or on the gen- 
54 



Adams and Jefferson 

eral prosperity of the country. This remark, 
I am aware, may be supposed to have its ex- 
ception in one measure, the alteration of the 
Constitution as to the mode of choosing Presi- 
dent ; but it is true in its general application. 
Thus the course of policy pursued towards 
France in 1798, on the one hand, and the meas- 
ures of commercial restriction commenced in 
1807, on the other, both subjects of warm and 
severe opposition, have passed away and left 
nothing behind them. They were temporary, 
and whether wise or unwise, their consequences 
were limited to their respective occasions. It 
IS equally clear, at the same time, and it is 
equally gratifying, that those measures of both 
administrations which were of durable impor- 
tance, and which drew after them momentous 
and long remaining consequences, have re- 
ceived general approbation. Such was the or- 
ganization, or rather the creation, of the navy, 
in the administration of Mr. Adams ; such the 
acquisition of Louisiana, in that of Mr. Jeffer- 
son. The country, it may safely be added, is 
not likely to be willing either to approve, or to 
reprobate, indiscriminately, and in the aggre- 
gate, all the measures of either, or of an}-, ad- 
ministration. The dictate of reason and of jus- 
tice is, that, holding each one his own senti- 
ments on the points of difference, we imitate 
the great men themselves in the forbearance 
and moderation which they have cherished, and 
in the mutual respect and kindness which they 



Daniel Webster 

have been so much inclined to feel and to re- 
ciprocate. 

No men, fellow-citizens, ever served their 
country with more entire exemption from every 
imputation of selfish and mercenary motives, 
than those to -whose memory we are paying 
these proofs of respect. A suspicion of any 
disposition to enrich themselves, or to profit by 
their public employments, never rested on 
either. No sordid motive approached them. 
The inheritance which they have left to their 
children is of their character and their fame. 

Fellow-citizens, I will detain you no longer 
by this faint and feeble tribute to the memory 
of the illustrious dead. Even in other hands, 
adequate justice could not be done to them, 
within the limits of this occasion. Their high- 
est, their best praise, is your deep conviction 
of their merits, your affectionate gratitude for 
their labors and their services. It is not my 
voice, it is this cessation of ordinary pursuits, 
this arresting of all attention, these solemn cere- 
monies, and this crowded house, which speak 
their eulogj^. Their fame, indeed, is safe. 
That is now treasured up beyond the reach of 
accident. Although no sculptured marble 
should rise to their memory, nor engraved stone 
bear record of their deeds, yet will their re- 
membrance be as lastmg as the land they hon- 
ored. Marble columns may, indeed, moulder 
into dust, time may erase all impress from the 
crumbling stone, but their fame remains ; for 
56 



Adams and Jefferson 

with American liberty it rose, and with Ameri- 
can LIBERTY ONLY Can it perish. It was the last 
swelling peal of yonder choir, " Their bodies 
are buried in peace, but their name liveth 
evermore." I catch that solemn song, I echo 
that lofty strain of funeral triumph, "Their 

NAME liveth EVERMORE." 

Of the illustrious signers of the Declaration 
of Independence there now remains only 
Charles Carroll. He seems an aged oak, 
standing alone on the plain, which time has 
spared a little longer after all its contemporaries 
have been levelled with the dust. Venerable 
object ! we delight to gather round its trunk, 
while yet it stands, and to dwell beneath its 
shadow. Sole survivor of an assembl}^ of as 
great men as the world has witnessed, in a 
transaction one of the most important that his- 
tory records, what thoughts, what interesting 
reflections, must fill his elevated and devout 
soul ! If he dwell on the past, how touching its 
recollections ; if he survey the present, how 
happy, how joyous, how full of the fruition of 
that hope, which his ardent patriotism in- 
dulged ; if he glance at the future, how does 
the prospect of his country's advancement al- 
most bewilder his weakened conception ? For- 
tunate, distinguished patriot ! Interesting relic 
of the past ! Let him know that, while we 
honor the dead, we do not forget the living ; 
and that there is not a heart here which does 



Daniel Webster 

not fervently pray, that Heaven may keep him 
yet back from the society of his companions. 

And now, fellow-citizens, let us not retire 
from this occasion without a deep and solemn 
conviction of the duties which have devolved 
upon us. This lovely land, this glorious lib- 
erty, these benign institutions, the dear pur- 
chase of our fathers, are ours ; ours to enjoy, 
ours to preserve, ours to transmit. Generations 
past and generations to come hold us responsi- 
ble for this sacred trust. Our fathers, from be- 
hind, admonish us, with their anxious paternal 
voices ; posterity calls out to us, from the bosom 
of the future ; the world turns hither its solici- 
tous eyes ; all, all conjure us to act wisely, and 
faithfully, in the relation which we sustain. 
We can never, indeed, pay the debt which is 
upon us ; but by virtue, by morality, by relig- 
ion, by the cultivation of every good principle 
and every good habit, we may hope to enjoy 
the blessing, through our day, and to leave it 
unimpaired to our children. Let us feel deeply 
how much of what we are and of what we pos- 
sess we owe to this liberty, and to these institu- 
tions of government. Nature has, indeed, given 
us a soil which yields bounteously to the hand of 
industry, the mighty and fruitful ocean is be- 
fore us, and the skies over our heads shed health 
and vigor. But what are lands, and seas, and 
skies, to civilized man, without society, without 
knowledge, without morals, without religious 
5S 



Adams and Jefferson 

culture ; and how can these be enjoyed, in all 
their extent and all their excellence, but under 
the protection of wise institutions and a free 
government ? Fellow-citizens, there is not one 
of us, there is not one of us here present, who 
does not, at this moment, and at every moment, 
experience, in his own condition, and in the 
condition of those most near and dear to him, 
the influence and the benefits of this liberty 
and these institutions. Let us then acknowl- 
edge the blessing, let us feel it deeply and pow- 
erfully, let us cherish a strong affection for it, 
and resolve to maintain and perpetuate it. The 
blood of our fathers, let it not have been shed 
in vain ; the great hope of posterity, let it not 
be blasted. 

The striking attitude, too, in which we stand 
to the world around us, a topic to which, I fear, 
I advert too often, and dwell on too long, can- 
not be altogether omitted here. Neither indi- 
viduals nor nations can perform their part well, 
until they understand and feel its importance, 
and comprehend and justly appreciate all the 
duties belonging to it. It is not to inflate national 
vanity, nor to swell a light and empty feeling 
of self-importance, but it is that we may judge 
justly of our situation, and of our own duties, that 
I earnestly urge upon you this consideration of 
our position and our character among the na- 
tions of the earth. It cannot be denied, but by 
those who would dispute against the sun, that 
with America, and in America, a new era com- 
59 



Daniel Webster 

mences in human affairs. This era is distin- 
guished by free representative governments, 
by entire religious liberty, by improved systems 
of national intercourse, by a newly awakened 
and an unconquerable spirit of free inquiry, and 
by a diffusion of knowledge through the com- 
munity, such as has been before altogether un- 
known and unheard of. America, America, 
our country, fellow-citizens, our own dear and 
native land, is inseparably connected, fast 
bound up, in fortune and by fate, with these 
great interests. If they fall, we fall with them ; 
if they stand, it will be because we have main- 
tained them. Let us contemplate, then, this 
connection, which binds the prosperity of others 
to our own ; and let us manfully discharge all 
the duties which it imposes. If we cherish the 
virtues and the principles of our fathers, Heaven 
will assist us to carry on the work of human 
liberty and human happiness. Auspicious 
omens cheer us. Great examples are before 
us. Our own firmament now shines brightly 
upon our path. Washington is in the clear, 
upper sky. These other stars have now joined 
the American constellation ; they circle round 
their centre, and the heavens beam with new 
light. Beneath this illumination let us walk the 
course of life, and at its close devoutly com- 
mend our beloved country, the common parent 
of us all, to the Divine Benignity. 



60 



Reply to Hayne 



6i 



Reply to Hayne 



[Usually printed in editions of Webster's 
Works as the Second Speech on Foot's Resolu- 
tion.] 

Mr. President, — When the mariner has been 
tossed for many days in thick weather, and on 
an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of 
the first pause in the storm, the earliest glance 
of the sun, to take his latitude, and ascertain 
how far the elements have driven him from his 
true course. Let us imitate this prudence, and, 
before we float farther on the waves of this de- 
bate, refer to the point from which we departed, 
that we may at least be able to conjecture 
where we now are. I ask for the reading of 
the resolution before the Senate. 

The Secretary read the resolution, as follows : — 
'■'■Resolved, That the Committee on Public Lands be 
instructed to inquire and report the quantity of public 
lands remaining unsold within each State and Terri- 
tory, and whether it be expedient to limit for a certain 
period the sales of the public lands to such lands only 
as have heretofore been offered for sale, and are now 
subject to entry at the minimum price. And, also, 
whether the office of Surveyor-General, and some of 
the land offices, may not be abolished without detri- 
ment to the public interest ; or whether it be expedi- 
ent to adopt measures to hasten the. sales and extend 
more rapidly the survevs of the public lands." 
63 



Daniel Webster 

We have thus heard, Sir, what the resolution 
is which is actually before us for consideration ; 
and it will readily occur to every one, that it is 
almost the only subject about which something 
has not been said in the speech, running 
through two days, by which the Senate has 
been entertained by the gentleman from South 
Carolina. Every topic in the wide range of our 
public affairs, whether past or present, — every- 
thing, general or local, whether belonging to 
national politics or party politics, — seems to 
have attracted more or less of the honorable 
member's attention, save only the resolution 
before the Senate. He has spoken of every 
thing but the public lands ; they have escaped 
his notice. To that subject, in all his excur- 
sions, he has not paid even the cold respect of a 
passing glance. 

When this debate. Sir, was to be resumed, 
on Thursday morning, it so happened that it 
would have been convenient for me to be else- 
where. The honorable member, however, did 
not incline to put off the discussion to another 
day. He had a shot, he said, to return, and he 
wished to discharge it. That shot, Si|", which 
he thus kindly informed us was coming, that 
we might stand out of the way, or prepare our- 
selves to fall by it and die with decency, has 
now been received. Under all advantages, 
and with expectation awakened by the tone 
which preceded it, it has been discharged, and 
has spent its force. It may become me to say 
64 



Reply to Hayne 



no more of its effect, than that, if nobody is 
found, after all, either killed or wounded, it is 
not the first time, in the history of human 
affairs, that the vigor and success of the war 
have not quite come up to the lofty and sound- 
ing phrase of the manifesto. 

The gentleman. Sir, in declining to postpone 
the debate, told the Senate, with the emphasis 
of his hand upon his heart, that there was some- 
thing rankling here, which he wished to relieve. 
[Mr. Hayne rose, and disclaimed having used 
the word ra7ikling.'\ It would not, Mr. Presi- 
dent, be safe for the honorable member to ap- 
peal to those around him, upon the question 
whether he did in fact make use of that word. 
But he may have been unconscious of it. At 
any rate, it is Enough that he disclaims it. But 
still, with or without the use of that particular 
word, he had yet something here, he said, of 
which he wished to rid himself by an immediate 
reply. In this respect. Sir, I have a great ad- 
vantage over the honorable gentleman. There 
is nothing here. Sir, which gives me the slight- 
est uneasiness ; neither fear, nor anger, nor 
that whidi is sometimes more troublesome than 
either, the consciousness of having been in the 
wrong. There is nothing, either originating 
here, or now received here by the gentleman's 
shot. Nothing originating here, for I had not 
the slightest feeling of unkindness towards the 
honorable member. Some passages, it is true, 
had occurred since our acquaintance in this 
65 



Daniel Webster 

body, which I could have wished might have 
been otherwise ; but 1 had used philosophy and 
forgotten them. I paid the honorable member 
the attention of listening with respect to his first 
speech ; and when he sat down, though sur- 
prised, and I must even say astonished, at some 
of his opinions, nothing was farther from my 
intention than to commence any personal war- 
fare. Through the whole of the few remarks 
I made in answer, I avoided, studiously and 
carefully, every thing which I thought possible 
to be construed into disrespect. And, Sir, 
while there is thus nothing originating here 
which I have wished at any time, or now wish, 
to discharge, I must repeat, also, that nothing 
has been received here which ra^ikles, or in 
any way gives me annoyance. I will not ac- 
cuse the honorable member of violating the 
rules of civilized war ; I will not say, that he 
poisoned his arrows. But whether his shafts 
were, or were not, dipped in that which would 
have caused rankling if they had reached their 
destination, there was not, as it happened, quite 
strength enough in the bow to bring them to 
their mark. If he wishes now to gather up 
those shafts, he must look for them elsewhere ; 
they will not be found fixed and quivering in 
the object at which they were aimed. 

The honorable member complained that I had 

slept on his speech. I must have slept on it, or 

not slept at all. The moment the honorable 

member sat down, his friend from Missouri 

66 



Reply to Hayne 

rose, and, with much honeyed commendation 
of the speech, suggested that the impressions 
which it had produced were too charming and 
deUghtful to be disturbed by other sentiments 
or other sounds, and proposed that the Senate 
should adjourn. Would it have been quite 
amiable in me. Sir, to interrupt this excellent 
good feeling ? Must I not have been absolutely 
malicious, if I could have thrust myself forward, 
to destroy sensations thus pleasing ? Was it 
not much better and kinder, both to sleep upon 
them myself, and to allow others also the pleas- 
ure of sleeping upon them ? But if it be meant, 
by sleeping upon his speech, that I took time 
to prepare a reply to it, it is quite a mistake. 
Owing to other engagements, I could not em- 
ploy even the interval between the adjournment 
of the Senate and its meeting the next morn- 
ing, in attention to the subject of this debate 
Nevertheless, Sir, the mere matter of fact is 
undoubtedly true. I did sleep on the gentle- 
man's speech, and slept soundly. And I slept 
equally well on his speech of yesterday, to 
which I am now replying. It is quite possible 
that in this respect, also, I possess some advan- 
tage over the honorable member, attributable, 
doubtless, to a cooler temperament on my 
part ; for, in truth, I slept upon his speeches 
remarkably well. 

But the gentleman inquires why he was made 
the object of such a reply. Why was he singled 
out ? If an attack has been made on the East» 
^7 



Daniel Webster 

he, he assures us, did not begin it ; it was made 
by the gentleman from Missouri. Sir, I an- 
swered the gentleman's speech because I hap- 
pened to hear it ; and because, also, I chose to 
give an answer to that speech, which, if unan- 
swered, I thought most likely to produce injuri- 
ous impressions. I did not stop to inquire who 
was the original drawer of the bill. I found a 
responsible indorser before me, and it was my 
purpose to hold him liable, and to bring him to 
his just responsibility, without delay. But, 
Sir, this interrogatory of the honorable member 
was only introductory to another. He pro- 
ceeded to ask me whether I had turned upon 
him, in this debate, from the consciousness that 
I should find an overmatch, if I ventured on a 
■contest with his friend from Missouri. If, Sir, 
the honorable member, modesticB gratia, had 
chosen thus to defer to his friend, and to pay 
him a compliment, without intentional dispar- 
agement to others, it would have been quite 
according to the friendly courtesies of debate, 
and not at all ungrateful to my own feelings. 
I am not one of those. Sir, who esteem any 
tribute of regard, whether light and occasional, 
or more serious and deliberate, which may be 
bestowed on others, as so much unjustly with- 
holden from themselves. But the tone and 
manner of the gentleman's question forbid me 
thus to interpret it. I am not at liberty to con- 
sider it as nothing more than a civility to his 
friend. It had an air of taunt and disparage- 
68 



Reply to Hayne 

ment, something of the loftiness of asserted 
superiority, which does not allow me to pass it 
over without notice. It was put as a question 
for me to answer, and so put as if it were diffi- 
cult for me to answer, whether I deemed the 
member from Missouri an overmatch for my- 
self, in debate here. It seems to me. Sir, that 
this is extraordinary language, and an extraor- 
dinary tone, for the discussions of this body. 

Matches and overmatches ! Those terms are 
more applicable elsewhere than here, and fitter 
for other assemblies than this. Sir, the gentle- 
man seems to forget where and what we are. 
This is a Senate, a Senate of equals, of men of 
individual honor and personal character, and of 
absolute independence. We know no masters, 
we acknowledge no dictators. This is a hall 
for mutual consultation and discussion ; not an 
arena for the exhibition of champions. I offer 
myself, Sir, as a match for no man ; I throw 
the challenge of debate at no man's feet. But 
then. Sir, since the honorable member has put 
the question in a manner that calls for an an- 
swer, I will give him an answer ; and I tell him, 
that, holding myself to be the humblest of the 
members here, I yet know nothing in the arm 
of his friend from Missouri, either alone or 
when aided by the arm of his friend from South 
Carolina, that need deter even me from espous- 
ing whatever opinions I may choose to espouse, 
from debating whenever I may choose to de- 
bate, or from speaking whatever I may see fit 
69 



Daniel Webster 

to say, on the floor of the Senate. Sir, when 
■uttered as matter of commendation or compH- 
ment, I should dissent from nothing which the 
honorable member might say of his friend. 
Still less do I put forth any pretensions of my 
own. But when put to me as matter of taunt, 
I throw it back, and say to the gentleman, that 
he could possibly say nothing less likely than 
such a comparison to wound my pride of per- 
sonal character. The anger of its tone rescued 
the remark from intentional irony, which other- 
wise, probably, would have been its general ac- 
ceptation. But, Sir, if it be imagined that by 
this mutual quotation and commendation ; if it 
be supposed that, by casting the characters of 
the drama, assigning to each his part, to one 
the attack, to another the cry of onset ; or if it 
be thought that, by a loud and empty vaunt of 
anticipated victory, any laurels are to be won 
here ; if it be imagined, esj)ecially, that any, 
or all these things will shake any purpose of 
mine, I can tell the honorable member, once for 
all, that he is greatly mistaken, and that he is 
dealing with one of whose temper and character 
he has yet much to learn. Sir, I shall not allow 
myself, on this occasion, I hope on no occasion, 
to be betrayed into any loss of temper ; but if 
provoked, as I trust I never shall be, into crim- 
ination and recrimination, the honorable mem- 
ber may perhaps find that, in that contest, there 
Avill be blows to take as well as blows to give ; 
that others can state comparisons as significant, 
70 



Reply to Hayne 

at least, as his own, and that his impunity may 
possibly demand of him whatever powers of 
taunt and sarcasm he may possess. I commend 
him to a prudent husbandry of his resources. 

But, Sir, the Coalition ! The Coalition ! Ay, 
"the murdered Coalition!" The gentleman 
asks, if I were led or frightened into this debate 
by the spectre of the Coalition. ' ' Was it the 
ghost of the murdered Coalition," he exclaims, 
" which haunted the member from Massachu- 
setts ; and which, like the ghost of Banquo, 
would never down?" "The murdered Coali- 
tion !" Sir, this charge of a coalition, in refer- 
ence to the late administration, is not original 
wnth the honorable member. It did not spring 
up in the Senate. Whether as a fact, as an 
argument, or as an embellishment, it is all bor- 
rowed. He adopts it, indeed, from a very low 
origin, and a still lower present condition. It 
is one of the thousand calumnies with which 
the press teemed, during an excited political 
canvass. It was a charge, of which there was 
not only no proof or probability, but which was 
in itself wholly impossible to be true. No man 
of common information ever believed a syllable 
of it. Yet it was of that class of falsehoods, 
which, by continued repetition, through all the 
organs of detraction and abuse, are capable of 
misleading those who are already far misled, 
and of further fanning passion already kindling 
into flame. Doubtless it served in its day, and 
in greater or less degree, the end designed by 
71 



Daniel Webster 

it. Having done that, it has sunk into the gen- 
eral mass of stale and loathed calumnies. It is 
the very cast-off slough of a polluted and shame- 
less press. Incapable of further mischief, it 
lies in the sewer, lifeless and despised. It is 
not now. Sir, in the power of the honorable 
member to give it dignity or decency, by at- 
tempting to elevate it, and to introduce it into 
the Senate. He cannot change it from what it 
is, an object of general disgust and scorn. On 
the contrary, the contact, if he choose to touch 
it, is more likely to drag him down, down, to 
the place where it lies itself. 

But, Sir, the honorable member was not, for 
other reasons, entirely happy in his allusion to 
the story of Banquo's murder and Banquo's 
ghost. It was not, I think, the friends, but the 
enemies of the murdered Banquo, at whose bid- 
ding his spirit would not down. The honorable 
gentleman is fresh in his reading of the Eng- 
lish classics, and can put me right if I am 
wrong ; but, according to my poor recollection, 
it was at those who had begun with caresses 
and ended with foul and treacherous murder 
that the gory locks were shaken. The ghost of 
Banquo, like that of Hamlet, was an honest 
ghost. It disturbed no innocent man. It knew 
where its appearance w^ould strike terror, and 
who would cry out, A ghost ! It made itself 
visible in the right quarter, and compelled the 
guilty and the conscience-smitten, and none 
others, to start, with, 

72 



Reply to Hayne 

" Pr'ythee, see there ! behold ! — look ! lo 
If I stand here, I saw him ! " 

Their eyeballs were seared (was it not so, Sir ?) 
who had thought to shield themselves by con- 
cealing their own hand, and laying the imputa- 
tion of the crime on a low and hireling agency 
in wickedness ; who had vainly attempted to 
stifle the workings of their own coward con- 
sciences by ejaculating through white lips and 
chattering teeth, " Thou canst not say 1 did it !" 
I have misread the great poet if those who had 
no way partaken in the deed of the death, either 
found that they were, or feared that they 
should be, pushed from their stools by the ghost 
of the slain, or exclaimed to a spectre created 
by their own fears and their own remorse, 
" Avaunt ! and quit our sight !" 

There is another particular, Sir, in which the 
honorable member's quick perception of resem- 
blances might, I should think, have seen some- 
thing in the story of Banquo, making it not 
altogether a subject of the most pleasant con- 
templation. Those who murdered Banquo, 
what did they win by it ? Substantial good ? 
Permanent power ? Or disappointment, rather, 
and sore mortification ; dust and ashes, the 
common fate of vaulting ambition overleaping 
itself ? Did not even-handed justice ere long 
commend the poisoned chalice to their own 
lips ? Did they not soon find that for another 
they had "filed their mind"? that their am- 
bition, though apparently for the moment suc- 
73 



Daniel Webster 

cessful, had but put a barren sceptre in their 
grasp ? Ay, Sir, 

" a barren sceptre in their gripe, 
Thence to be zvrenched with an unlineal hatid. 
No son of theirs succeeding.'' 

Sir, I need pursue the allusion no farther. I 
leave the honorable gentleman to run it out at 
his leisure, and to derive from it all the gratifi- 
cation it is calculated to administer. If he finds 
himself pleased with the associations, and pre- 
pared to be quite satisfied, though the parallel 
should be entirely completed, I had almost said, 
I am satisfied also ; but that I shall think of. 
Yes, Sir, I will think of that. 

In the course of my observations the other 
day, Mr. President, I paid a passing tribute of 
respect to a very worthy man, Mr. Dane of 
JNIassachusetts. It so happened that he drew 
the Ordinance of 1787, for the government of 
the Northwestern Territory. A man of so much 
ability, and so little pretence ; of so great a 
capacity to do good, and so unmixed a disposi- 
tion to do it for its own sake ; a gentleman who 
had acted an important part, forty years ago, 
in a measure the influence of which is still 
deeply felt in the very matter which was the 
subject of debate, might, I thought, receive 
from me a commendatory recognition. But 
the honorable member was inclined to be face- 
tious on the subject. He was rather disposed 
to make it matter of ridicule, that I had intro- 
duced into the debate the name of one Nathan 
74 



Reply to Hayne 



Dane, of whom he assures us he had never be- 
fore heard>> Sir, if the honorable member had 
never before heard of Mr. Dane, I am sorry 
for it. It shows him less acquainted with the 
public men of the country than I had supposed. 
Let me tell him, however, that a sneer from 
him at the mention of the name of Mr. Dane is 
in bad taste. It may well be a high mark of 
ambition, Sir, either with the honorable gentle- 
man or myself, to accomplish as much to make 
our names known to advantage, and remem- 
bered with gratitude, as Mr, Dane has accom- 
plished. But the truth is. Sir, I suspect, that 
Mr. Dane lives a little too far north. He is of 
Massachusetts, and too near the north star to 
be reached by the honorable gentleman's tele- 
scope. If his sphere had happened to range 
south of Mason and Dixon's line, he might, 
probably, have come within the scope of his 
vision. 

I spoke, Sir, of the Ordinance of 1787, which 
prohibits slavery, in all future times, northwest 
of the Ohio, as a measure of great wisdom and 
foresight, and one which had been attended 
with highly beneficial and permanent conse- 
quences. I supposed that, on this point, no 
two gentlemen in the Senate could entertain 
different opinions. But the simple expression 
of this sentiment has led the gentleman, not 
only into a labored defence of slavery, in the 
abstract, and on principle, but also into a warm 
accusation against me, as having attacked the 



Daniel Webster 

system of domestic slavery now existing in the 
Southern States. For all this, there was not 
the slightest foundation, in any thing said or 
intimated by me. I did not utter a single word 
which any ingenuity could torture into an at- 
tack on the slavery of the South. I said, only, 
that it was highly wise and useful, in legislating 
for the Northwestern country while it was yet 
a wilderness, to prohibit the introduction of 
slaves ; and I added, that I presumed there 
was no reflecting and intelligent person, in the 
neighboring State of Kentucky, who would 
doubt that, if the same prohibition had been 
extended, at the same early period, over that 
commonwealth, her strength and population 
would, at this day, have been far greater than 
they are. If these opinions be thought doubt- 
ful, they are nevertheless, I trust, neither ex- 
traordinary nor disrespectful. They attack no- 
body and menace nobody. And yet. Sir, the 
gentleman's optics have discovered, even in 
the mere expression of this sentiment, what he 
calls the very spirit of the Missouri question ! 
He represents me as making an onset on the 
whole South, and manifesting a spirit which 
would interfere with, and disturb, their domes- 
tic condition ! 

Sir, this injustice no otherwise surprises me, 
than as it is committed here, and committed 
without the slightest pretence of ground for it. 
I say it only surprises me as being done here ; 
for I know full well, that it is, and has been, 
76 



Reply to Hayne 

the settled policy of some persons in the South, 
for years, to represent the people of the North 
as disposed to interfere with them in their own 
exclusive and peculiar concerns. This is a deli- 
cate and sensitive point in Southern feeling ; 
and of late years it has always been touched, 
and generally with effect, whenever the object 
has been to unite the whole South against 
Northern men or Northern measures. This 
feeling, always carefully kept alive, and main- 
tained at too intense a heat to admit discrimina- 
tion or reflection, is a lever of great power in 
our political machine. It moves vast bodies, 
and gives to them one and the same direction. 
But it is without adequate cause, and the sus- 
picion which exists is wholly groundless. There 
is not, and never has been, a disposition in the 
North to interfere with these interests of the 
South. Such interference has never been sup- 
posed to be within the power of government ; 
nor has it been in any way attempted. The 
slavery of the South has always been regarded 
as a matter of domestic policy, left with the 
States themselves, and with which the federal 
government had nothing to do. Certainly, Sir, 
I am, and ever have been, of that opinion. 
The gentleman, indeed, argues that slaver3% in 
the abstract, is no evil. Most assuredly I need 
not say I differ with him, altogether and most 
widely, on that point. I regard domestic 
slavery as one of the greatest evils, both moral 
and political. But whether it be a malady, and 



Daniel Webster 

whether it be curable, and if so, by what means ; 
or, on the other hand, whether it be the vubiiis 
ivimedicabile of the social system, I leave it to 
those whose right and duty it is to inquire and 
to decide. And this I believe, Sir, is, and uni- 
formly has been, the sentiment of the North. 
Let us look a little at the history of this matter. 

When the present Constitution was submitted 
for the ratification of the people, there were 
those who imagined that the powers of the gov- 
ernment which it proposed to establish might, 
in some possible mode, be exerted in measures 
tending to the abolition of slavery. This sug- 
gestion would of course attract much attention 
in the Southern conventions. In that of Vir- 
ginia, Governor Randolph said : — 

" I hope there is none here, who, considering 
the subject in the calm light of philosophy, will 
make an objection dishonorable to Virginia ; 
that, at the moment they are securing the rights 
of their citizens, an objection is started, that 
there is a spark of hope that those unfortunate 
men now held in bondage may, by the opera- 
tion of the general government, be made free." 

At the very first Congress, petitions on the 
subject were presented, if I mistake not, from 
different States. The Pennsylvania society for 
promoting the abolition of slavery took a lead, 
and laid before Congress a memorial, praying 
Congress to promote the abolition by such pow- 
ers as it possessed. This memorial was re- 
ferred, in the House of Representatives, to a 



Reply to Hayne 

select committee, consisting of Mr. Foster of 
New Hampshire, Mr. Gerry of Massachusetts, 
Mr. Huntington of Connecticut, Mr. Lawrence 
of New York, Mr. Sinnickson of New Jersey, 
Mr. Hartley of Pennsylvania, and Mr. Parker 
of Virginia ; all of them. Sir, as you will ob- 
serve. Northern men but the last. This com- 
mittee made a report, which was referred to a 
committee of the whole House, and there con- 
sidered and discussed for several days ; and 
being amended, although without material alter- 
ation, it was made to express three distinct 
propositions, on the subject of slavery and the 
slave-trade. First, in the words of the Consti- 
tution, that Congress could not, prior to the 
year iSoS, prohibit the migration or importation 
of such persons as any of the States then exist- 
ing should think proper to admit ; and secondl}-, 
that Congress had authority to restrain the citi- 
zens of the United States from carrjdng on the 
African slave trade, for the purpose of supply- 
ing foreign countries. On this proposition, our 
early laws against those who engage in that 
traffic are founded. The third proposition, and 
that which bears on the present question, was 
expressed in the following terms : — 

" Resolved, That Congress have no authority 
to interfere in the emancipation of slaves, or in 
the treatment of them in any of the vStates ; it 
remaining with the several States alone to pro- 
vide rules and regulations therein which hu- 
manity and true policy may require." 
79 



Daniel Webster 

This resolution received the sanction of the 
House of Representatives so early as March, 
1790. And now, Sir, the honorable member 
will allow me to remind him, that not only were 
the select committee who reported the resolu- 
tion, with a single exception, all Northern men, 
but also that, of the members then composing 
the House of Representatives, a large majority, 
I believe nearly two thirds, were Northern men 
also. 

The House agreed to insert these resolutions 
in its journal, and from that day to this it has 
never been maintained or contended at the 
North, that Congress had any authority to regu- 
late or interfere with the condition of slaves in 
the several States. No Northern gentleman, 
to my knowledge, has moved any such question 
in either House of Congress. 

The fears of the South, whatever fears they 
might have entertained, were allayed and 
quieted by this early decision ; and so remained 
till they were excited afresh, without cause, but 
for collateral and indirect purposes. When it 
became necessary, or was thought so, by some 
political persons, to find an unvarying ground 
for the exclusion of Northern men from confi- 
dence and from lead in the affairs of the repub- 
lic, then, and not till then, the cry was raised, 
and the feeling industriously excited, that the 
influence of Northern men in. the public coun- 
sels would endanger the relation of master and 
slave. For myself, I claim no other merit than 
80 



Reply to Hayne 

that this gross and enormous injustice towards 
the whole North has not wrought upon me to 
change my opinions or my poHtical conduct. I 
hope I am above violating my principles, even 
under the smart of injury and false imputa- 
tions. Unjust suspicions and undeserved re- 
proach, whatever pain I may experience from 
them, will not induce me, I trust, to overstep 
the limits of constitutional duty, or to encroach 
on the rights of others. The domestic slavery 
of the Southern States I leave where I find it, 
— in the hands of their own governments. It 
is their affair, not mine. Nor do I complain of 
the peculiar effect which the magnitude of that 
population has had in the distribution of power 
under this federal government. We know, Sir, 
that the representation of the States in the 
other house is not equal. We know that great 
advantage in that respect is enjoyed by the 
slave-holding States ; and we know, too, that 
the intended equivalent for that advantage, 
that is to say, the imposition of direct taxes in 
the same ratio, has become merely nominal, 
the habit of the government being almost in- 
variabl}" to collect its revenue from other sources 
and in other modes. Nevertheless, I do not 
complain ; nor would I countenance any move- 
ment to alter this arrangement of representa- 
tion. It is the original bargain, the compact ; 
let it stand ; let the advantage of it be fully en- 
joyed. The Union itself is too full of benefit to 
be hazarded in propositions for changing its 



Daniel Webster 

original basis. I go for the Constitution as it 
is, and for tlie Union as it is. But I am re- 
solved not to submit in silence to accusations, 
either against myself individually or against 
the North, wholly unfounded and unjust ; ac- 
cusations which impute to us a disposition to 
evade the constitutional compact, and to extend 
the power of the government over the internal 
laws and domestic condition of the States. All 
such accusations, wherever and whenever made, 
all insinuations of the existence of any such 
purposes, I know and feel to be groundless and 
injurious. And we must confide in Southern 
gentlemen themselves ; we must trust to those 
whose integrity of heart and magnanimity of 
feeling will lead them to a desire to maintain 
and disseminate truth, and who possess the 
means of its diffusion with the Southern pub- 
lic ; we must leave it to them to disabuse that 
public of its prejudices. But in the mean time, 
for my own part, I shall continue to act justly, 
whether those towards whom justice is exer- 
cised receive it with candor or with contumely. 
Having had occasion to recur to the Ordi- 
nance of 17S7, in order to defend myself against 
the inferences which the honorable member has 
chosen to draw from my former observations 
on that subject, I am not willing now entirely 
to take leave of it without another remark. It 
need hardly be said, that that paper expresses 
just sentiments on the great subject of civil 
and religious libert3^ Such sentiments were 
82 



Reply to Hayne 



common, and abound in all our state papers of 
that day. But this Ordinance did that which 
was not so common, and which is not even now 
imiversal ; that is, it set forth and declared it 
to be a high and binding duty of government 
itself to support schools and advance the means 
of education, on the plain reason that religion, 
morality, and knowledge are necessary to good 
government, and to the happiness of mankind. 
One observation further. The important pro- 
vision incorporated into the Constitution of the 
United States, and into several of those of the 
States, and recently, as we have seen, adopted 
into the reformed constitution of Virginia, re- 
straining legislative power in questions of pri- 
vate right, and from impairing the obligation 
of contracts, is first introduced and established, 
as far as I am informed, as matter of express 
written constitutional law, in this Ordinance of 
1787. And I must add, also, in regard to the 
author of the Ordinance, who has not had the 
happiness to attract the gentleman's notice 
heretofore, nor to avoid his sarcasm now, that 
he was chairman of that select committee of the 
old Congress, whose report first expressed the 
strong sense of that body, that the old Confed- 
eration was not adequate to the exigencies of 
the country, and recommended to the States to 
send delegates to the convention which formed 
the present Constitution. 

An attempt has been made to transfer from 
the North to the South the honor of this exclu- 



Daniel Webster 

sion of slavery from the Northwestern Terri- 
tory. The journal, without argument or com- 
ment, refutes such attempts. The cession by 
Virginia was made in March, 17S4. On the 
19th of April following, a committee, consisting 
of Messrs. Jefferson, Chase, and Howell, re- 
ported a plan for a temporary government of the 
territory, in which was this article: "That, 
after the year 1800, there shall be neither slavery 
nor involuntary servitude in any of the said 
States, otherwise than in punishment of crimes, 
whereof the party shall have been convicted." 
Mr. Spaight of North Carolina moved to strike 
out this paragraph. The question was put, ac- 
cording to the form then practised, " Shall 
these words stand as a part of the plan ?' ' New 
Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Con- 
necticut, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsyl- 
vania, seven States, voted in the affirmative ; 
Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, in the 
negative. North Carolina was divided. As the 
consent of nine States was necessary, the words 
could not stand, and were struck out accord- 
ingly. Mr. Jefferson voted for the clause, but 
was overruled by his colleagues. 

In March of the next year (17S5), Mr. King of 
Massachusetts, seconded by Mr. EUery of 
Rhode Island, proposed the formerly rejected 
article, with this addition : " A.nd that this 
regulation shall be an article of compact, and 
remain a fundamental principle of the constitu- 
tions between the thirteen original States, and 
S4 



Reply to Hayne 



each of the States described in the resolve." 
On this clause, which provided the adequate 
and thorough security, the eight Northern 
States at that time voted affirmatively, and the 
four Southern States negatively. The votes of 
nine States were not yet obtained, and thus the 
provision was again rejected by the Southern 
States. The perseverance of the North held 
out, and two years afterwards the object was 
attained. It is no derogation from the credit, 
whatever that may be, of drawing the Ordi- 
nance, that its principles had before been pre- 
pared and discussed, in the form of resolutions. 
If one should reason in that way, what would 
become of the distinguished honor of the author 
of the Declaration of Independence ? There is 
not a sentiment in that paper which had not 
been voted and resolved in the assemblies, and 
other popular bodies in the country, over and 
over again. 

But the honorable member has now found 
out that this gentleman, Mr. Dane, was a mem- 
ber of the Hartford Convention. However un- 
informed the honorable member may be of 
characters and occurrences at the North, it 
would seem that he has at his elbow, on this 
occasion, some high-minded and lofty spirit, 
some magnanimous and true-hearted monitor, 
possessing the means of local knowledge, and 
ready to supply the honorable member with 
every thing, down even to forgotten and moth- 
eaten two-penny pamphlets, which may be used 
S5 



Daniel Webster 

to the disadvantage of his own country. But 
as to the Hartford Convention, Sir, allow me 
to say, that the proceedings of that body seem 
now to be less read and studied in New Eng- 
land than farther South. They appear to be 
looked to, not in New England, but elsewhere, 
for the purpose of seeing how far they may 
serve as a precedent. But they will not answer 
the purpose, they are quite too tame. The lati- 
tude in which they originated was too cold. 
Other conventions, of more recent existence, 
have gone a whole bar's length beyond it. The 
learned doctors of Colleton and Abbeville have 
pushed their commentaries on the Hartford col- 
lect so far, that the original text- writers are 
thrown entirely into the shade. I have nothing 
to do, Sir, with the Hartford Convention. Its 
journal, which the gentleman has quoted, I 
never read. So far as the honorable member 
may discover in its proceedings a spirit in any 
degree resembling that which was avowed and 
justified in those other conventions to which I 
have alluded, or so far as tliose proceedings can 
be shown to be disloyal to the Constitution, or 
tending to disunion, so far I shall be as ready 
as any one to bestow on them reprehension and 
censure. 

Having dwelt long on this convention, and 
other occurrences of that day, in the hope, prob- 
ably, (which will not be gratified,) that I should 
leave the course of this debate to follow him at 
length in those excursions, the honorable mem- 
86 



Reply to Hayne 

ber returned, and attempted another object. 
He referred to a speech of mine in the other 
house, the same which I had occasion to allude 
to myself, the other day ; and has quoted a pas- 
sage or two from it, with a bold, though uneasy 
and laboring, air of confidence, as if he had de- 
tected in me an inconsistency. Judging from 
the gentleman's manner, a stranger to the 
course of the debate and to the point in discus- 
sion would have imagined, from so triumphant 
a tone, that the honorable member was about 
to overwhelm me with a manifest contradiction. 
Any one who heard him, and who had not 
heard what I had, in fact, previously said, must 
have thought me routed and discomfited, as the 
gentleman had promised. Sir, a breath blows 
all this triumph away. There is not the slight- 
est difference in the purport of my remarks on 
the two occasions. What I said here on Wed- 
nesday is in exact accordance with the opinion 
expressed by me in the other house in 1S25. 
Though the gentleman had the metaphysics of 
Hudibras, though he were able 

" to sever and divide 
A hair 'twixt north and northwest side," 

he yet could not insert his metaphysical scissors 
between the fair reading of my remarks in 1825, 
and what I said here last week. There is not 
only no contradiction, no difference, but, in 
truth, too exact a similarity, both in thought 
and language, to be entirely in just taste. I 



Daniel Webster 

had myself " quoted the same speech ; had re- 
curred to it, and spoke with it open before me ; 
and much of what I said was little more than a 
repetition from it. In order to make finishing 
work with this alleged contradiction, permit 
me to recur to the origin of this debate, and re- 
view its course. This seems expedient, and 
may be done as well now as at any time. 

Well, then, its history is this. The honorable 
member from Connecticut moved a resolution, 
which constitutes the first branch of that which 
is now before us ; that is to say, a resolution, 
instructing the committee on public lands to in- 
quire into the expediency of limiting, for a cer- 
tain period, the sales of the public lands, to such 
as have heretofore been offered for sale ; and 
whether sundry offices connected with the sales 
of the lands might not be abolished without det- 
riment to the public service. In the progress 
of the discussion which arose on this resolution, 
an honorable member from New Hampshire 
moved to amend the resolution, so as entirely 
to reverse its object ; that is, to strike it all out, 
and insert a direction to the committee to in- 
quire into the expediency of adopting measures 
to hasten the sales, and extend more rapidly the 
surveys, of the lands. 

The honorable member from Maine suggested 
that both those propositions might well enough 
go for consideration to the committee ; and in 
this state of the question, the member from 
South Carolina addressed the Senate m his first 



Reply to Hayne 



speech. He rose, he said, to give us his own 
free thoughts on the pubhc lands. I saw him 
rise with pleasure, and listened with expecta- 
tion, though before he concluded I was filled 
with surprise. Certainl}', I was never more 
surprised, than to find him following up, to the 
extent he did, the sentiments and opinions which 
the gentleman from Missouri had put forth, 
and which it is known he has long entertained. 
I need not repeat at large the general topics 
of the honorable gentleman's speech. When 
he said yesterday that he did not attack the 
Eastern States, he certainly must have forgot- 
ten, not only particular remarks, but the whole 
drift and tenor of his speech ; unless he means 
by not attacking, that he did not commence 
hostilities, but that another had preceded him 
in the attack. He, in the first place, disap' 
proved of the whole course of the government, 
for forty years, in regard to its disposition of 
the public lands ; and then, turning northward 
and eastward, and fancying he had found a 
cause for alleged narrowness and niggardliness 
in the " accursed policy" of the tariff, to which 
he represented the people of New England as 
wedded, he went on for a full hour with re- 
marks, the whole scope of which was to exhibit 
the results of this policy, in feelings and in 
measures unfavorable to the West. I thought 
his opinions unfounded and erroneous, as to the 
general course of the government, and ventured 
to reply to them. 

89 



Daniel Webster 

The gentleman had remarked on the analogy 
of other cases, and quoted the conduct of Euro- 
pean governments towards their own subjects 
settling on this continent, as in point, to show 
that we had been harsh and rigid in selling, 
when we should have given the public lands to 
settlers without price. I thought the honorable 
member had suffered his judgment to be be- 
trayed by a false analogy ; that he was struck 
with an appearance of resemblance where there 
was no real similitude. I think so still. The 
first settlers of North America were enterpris- 
ing spirits, engaged in private adventure, or 
fleeing from tyranny at home. When arrived 
here, they were forgotten by the mother coun- 
try, or remembered only to be oppressed. Car- 
ried away again by the appearance of analogy, 
or struck with the eloqiience of the passage, the 
honorable member yesterday observed, that the 
conduct of government towards the Western 
emigrants, or my representation of it, brought 
to his mind a celebrated speech in the British 
Parliament. It was. Sir, the speech of Colonel 
Barre. On the question of the stamp act, or 
tea tax, I forget which. Colonel Barre had heard 
a member on the treasury bench argue, that 
the people of the United States, being British 
colonists, planted by the maternal care, nour- 
ished by the indulgence, and protected by the 
arms of England, would not grudge their mite 
to relieve the mother country from the heavy 
burden under which she groaned. The Ian- 
90 



Reply to Hayne 

guage of Colonel Barre, in reply to this, was, — 
' ' They planted by your care ? Your oppression 
planted them in America. They fled from your 
tyranny, and grew by your neglect of them. 
So soon as you began to care for them, you 
showed your care by sending persons to spy 
out their liberties, misrepresent their character, 
prey upon them, and eat out their substance." 

And how does the honorable gentleman mean 
to inaintain, that language like this is applica- 
ble to the conduct of the government of the 
United States towards the Western emigrants, 
or to any representation given by me of that 
conduct ? Were the settlers in the West driven 
thither by our oppression ? Have they flour- 
ished only by our neglect of them ? Has the 
government done nothing but prey upon them, 
and eat out their substance ? Sir, this fervid 
eloquence of the British speaker, just when and 
where it was uttered, and fit to remain an exer- 
cise for the schools, is not a little out of place, 
when it is brought thence to be applied here, to 
the conduct of our own country towards her 
own citizens. From America to England, it 
may be true ; from Americans to their own 
government, it would be strange language. 
Let us leave it, to be recited and declaimed by 
our boys against a foreign nation ; not intro- 
duce it here, to recite and declaim ourselves 
against our own. 

But I come to the point of the alleged con- 
tradiction. In my remarks on Wednesday, I 
91 



Daniel Webster 

contended that we could not give away gratui- 
tously all the public lands ; that we held them 
in trust ; that the government had solemnly 
pledged itself to dispose of them as a common 
fund for the common benefit, and to sell and 
settle them as its discretion should dictate. 
Now, Sir, what contradiction does the gentle- 
man find to this sentiment in the speech of 
1825 ? He quotes me as having then said, that 
we ought not to hug these lands as a very great 
treasure. Very well, Sir, supposing me to be 
accurately reported in that expression, what is 
the contradiction ? I have not now said, that 
we should hug these lands as a favorite source 
of pecuniary income. No such thing. It is not 
my view. What I have said, and what 1 do 
say, is, that they are a common fund, to be dis- 
posed of for the common benefit, to be sold at 
low prices for the accommodation of settlers, 
keeping the object of settling the lands as much 
in view as that of raising money from them. 
This I say now, and this I have always said. 
Is this hugging them as a favorite treasure ? Is 
there no difference between hugging and hoard- 
ing this fund, on the one hand, as a great 
treasure, and, on the other, of disposing of it at 
low^ prices, placing the proceeds in the general 
treasury of the Union ? My opinion is, that as 
much is to be made of the land as fairly and 
reasonably may be, selling it all the while at 
such rates as to give the fullest effect to settle- 
ment. This is not giving it all away to the 
92 



Reply to Hayne • 

States, as the gentleman would propose ; nor 
is it hugging the fund closely and tenaciously, 
as a favorite treasure ; but it is, in my judg- 
ment, a just and wise policy, perfectly accord- 
ing with all the various duties which rest on 
government. So much for my contradiction. 
And what is it ? Where is the ground of the 
gentleman's triumph? What inconsistency in 
word or doctrine has he been able to detect ? 
Sir, if this be a sample of that discomfiture with 
which the honorable gentleman threatened me, 
commend me to the word dtscoinfittire for the 
rest of my life. 

But, after all, this is not the point of the de- 
bate ; and I must now bring the gentleman 
back to what is the point. 

The real question between me and him is. 
Has the doctrine been advanced at the South 
or the East, that the population of the West 
should be retarded, or at least need not be 
hastened, on account of its effect to drain off 
the people from the Atlantic States? Is this 
doctrine, as has been alleged, of Eastern ori- 
gin ? That is the question. Has the gentleman 
found any thing by which he can make good 
his accusation ? I submit to the Senate, that 
he has entirely failed ; and, as far as this de- 
bate has shown, the only person who has ad- 
vanced such sentiments is a gentleman from 
South Carolina, and a friend of the honorable 
member himself. The honorable gentleman 
has given no answer to this ; there is none 
93 



Daniel Webster 

which can be given. The simple fact, while it 
requires no comment to enforce it, defies all 
argument to refute it. I could refer to the 
speeches of another Southern gentleman, in 
years before, of the same general character, and 
to the same effect, as that which has been 
quoted ; but I will not consume the time of the 
Senate by the reading of them. 

So then. Sir, New England is guiltless of the 
policy of retarding Western population, and of 
all envy and jealousy of the growth of the new 
States. Whatever there be of that policy in the 
country, no part of it is hers. If it has a local 
habitation, the honorable member has probably 
seen by this time where to look for it ; and if it 
now has received a name, he has himself chris- 
tened it. 

We approach, at length. Sir, to a more im- 
portant part of the honorable gentleman's ob- 
servations. Since it does not accord with my 
views of justice and policy to give away the 
public lands altogether, as a mere matter of 
gratuity, I am asked by the honorable gentle- 
man on what ground it is that I consent to vote 
them away in particular instances. How, he 
inquires, do I reconcile with these professed 
sentiments, my support of measures appropri- 
ating portions of the lands to particular roads, 
particular canals, particular rivers, and particu- 
lar institutions of education in the West ? This 
leads, Sir, to the real and wide difference in 
political opinion between the honorable gentle- 
94 



Reply to Hayne 

man and myself. On my part, I look upon all 
these objects as connected with the common 
good, fairly embraced in its object and its 
terms ; he, on the contrary, deems them all, if 
good at all, only local good. This is our differ- 
ence. The interrogatory which he proceeded 
to put, at once explains this difference. ' ' What 
interest," asks he, "has South Carolina in a 
canal in Ohio ?" Sir, this very question is full 
of significance. It develops the gentleman's 
whole political system ; and its answer ex- 
pounds mine. Here we differ, I look upon a 
road over the AUeghanies, a canal round the 
falls of the Ohio, or a canal or railway from the 
Atlantic to the Western waters, as being an ob- 
ject large and extensive enough to be fairly 
said to be for the common benefit. The gentle- 
man thinks otherwise, and this is the key to his 
construction of the powers of the government. 
He may well ask what interest has South Caro- 
lina in a canal in Ohio. On his system, it is 
true, she has no interest. On that system, Ohio 
and Carolina are different governments, and 
different countries ; connected here, it is true, 
by some slight and ill-defined bond of union, 
but in all main respects separate and diverse. 
On that system., Carolina has no more interest 
in a canal in Ohio than in Mexico. The gentle- 
man, therefore, only follows out his own prin- 
ciples ; he does no more than arrive at the nat- 
ural conclusions of his own doctrines ; he only 
announces the true results of that creed which 
95 



Daniel Webster 

he has adopted himself, and would persuade 
others to adopt, when he thus declares that 
South Carolina has no interest in a public work 
in Ohio. 

Sir, we narrow-minded people of New Eng- 
land do not reason thus. Our notion of things 
is entirely different. We look upon the States, 
not as separated, but as united. We love to 
dwell on that union, and on the mutual happi- 
ness which it has so much promoted, and the 
common renown which it has so greatly con- 
tributed to acquire. In our contemplation, 
Carolina and Ohio are parts of the same coun- 
try ; States, united under the same general 
government, having interests, common, associ- 
ated, intermingled. In whatever is within the 
proper sphere of the constitutional power of 
this government, we look upon the States as 
one. We do not impose geographical limits to 
our patriotic feeling or regard ; we do not fol- 
low rivers and mountains, and lines of latitude, 
to find boundaries, beyond which public im- 
provements do not benefit us. We who come 
here, as agents and representatives of these 
narrow-minded and selfish men of New Eng- 
land, consider ourselves as bound to regard 
with an equal eye the good of the whole, in 
whatever is within our powers of legislation. 
Sir, if a railroad or canal, beginning in South 
Carolina and ending in South Carolina, ap- 
peared to me to be of national importance and 
national magnitude, believing, as I do, that the 
96 



Reply to Hayne 



power of government extends to the encourage- 
ment of works of that description, if I were to 
stand up here and ask, What interest has 
Massachusetts in a railroad in South Carolina ? 
I should not be willing to face my constituents. 
These same narrow-minded men would tell me, 
that they had sent me to act for the whole coun- 
try, and that one who possessed too little com- 
prehension, either of intellect or feeling, one 
who was not large enough, both in mind and 
in heart, to embrace the whole, was not fit to 
be intrusted with the interest of any part. 

Sir, I do not desire to enlarge the powers of 
the government by unjustifiable construction, 
nor to exercise any not within a fair interpreta- 
tion. But when it is believed that a power does 
exist, then it is, in my judgment, to be exer- 
cised for the general benefit of the whole. So 
far as respects the exercise of such a power, the 
States are one. It was the very object of the 
Constitution to create unity of interests to the 
extent of the powers of the general govern- 
ment. In war and peace we are one ; in com- 
merce, one ; because the authority of the gen- 
eral government reaches to war and peace, and 
to the regulation of commerce. I have never 
seen any more difficulty in erecting lighthouses 
on the lakes, than on the ocean ; in improving 
the harbors of inland seas, than if they were 
within the ebb and flow of the tide ; or in re- 
moving obstructions in the vast streams of the 
West, more than in any work to facilitate com- 
97 



Daniel Webster 

merce on the Atlantic coast. If there be any 
power for one, there is power also for the other ; 
and they are all and equally for the common 
good of the country. 

There are other objects, apparently more lo- 
cal, or the benefit of which is less general, tow- 
ards which, nevertheless, I have concurred with 
others, to give aid by donations of land. It is 
proposed to construct a road, in or through one 
of the new States, in which this government 
possesses large quantities of land. Have the 
United States no right, or, as a great and un- 
taxed proprietor, are they under no obligation 
to contribute to an object thus calculated to 
promote the common good of all the proprietors, 
themselves included ? And even with respect 
to education, which is the extreme case, let the 
question be considered. In the first place, as 
we have seen, it was made matter of compact 
with these States, that they should do their 
part to promote education. In the next place, 
our whole system of land laws proceeds on the 
idea that education is for the common good ; 
because, in every division, a certain portion is 
uniformly reserved and appropriated for the use 
of schools. And, finally, have not these new 
States singularly strong claims, founded on the 
ground already stated, that the government is 
a great untaxed proprietor, in the ownership of 
the soil ? It is a consideration of great impor- 
tance, that probably there is in no part of the 
country, or of the world, so great call for the 
98 



Reply to Hayne 



means of education, as in these new States, 
owing to the vast numbers of persons within 
those ages in which education and instruction 
are usually received, if received at all. This is 
the natural consequence of recency of settle- 
ment and rapid increase. The census of these 
States shows how great a proportion of the 
whole population occupies the classes between 
infancy and manhood. These are the wide 
fields, and here is the deep and quick soil for 
the seeds of knowledge and virtue ; and this is 
the favored season, the very spring-time for 
sowing them. Let them be disseminated with- 
out stint. Let them be scattered with a bounti- 
ful hand, broadcast. Whatever the govern- 
ment can fairly do towards these objects, in 
my opinion, ought to be done. 

These, Sir, are the grounds, succinctly stated, 
on which my votes for grants of lands for par- 
ticular objects rest ; while I maintain, at the 
same time, that it is all a common fund, for the 
common benefit. And reasons like these, I 
presume, have influenced the votes of other 
gentlemen from New England. Those who 
have a different view of the powers of the gov- 
ernment, of course, come to different conclu- 
sions, on these, as on other questions. I ob- 
served, when speaking on this subject before, 
that if we looked to any measure, whether for a 
road, a canal, or any thing else, intended for 
the improvement of the West, it would be found 
that, if the New England ayes were struck out 
99 



Daniel Webster 

of the lists of votes, the Southern noes would 
always have rejected the measure. The truth 
of this has not been denied, and cannot be de- 
nied. In stating this, I thought it just to ascribe 
it to the constitutional scruples of the South, 
rather than to any other less favorable or less 
charitable cause. But no sooner had I done 
this, than the honorable gentleman asks if I re- 
proach him and his friends with their constitu- 
tional scruples. Sir, I reproach nobody. I 
stated a fact, and gave the most respectful rea- 
son for it that occurred to me. The gentleman 
cannot deny the fact ; he may, if he choose, 
disclaim the reason. It is not long since I had 
occasion, in presenting a petition from his own 
State, to account for its being intrusted to my 
hands, by saying, that the constitutional opin- 
ions of the gentleman and his worthy colleague 
prevented them from supporting it. Sir, did I 
state this as matter of reproach? Far from it. 
Did I attempt to find any other cause than an 
honest one for these scruples ? Sir, I did not. 
It did not become me to doubt or to insinuate 
that the gentleman had either changed his sen- 
timents, or that he had made up a set of con- 
stitutional opinions accommodated to any par- 
ticular combination of political occurrences. 
Had I done so, I should have felt, that, while I 
was entitled to little credit in thus questioning 
other people's motives, I justified the whole 
world in suspecting my own. But how has the 
gentleman returned this respect for others' 

100 



Reply to Hayne 

opinions ? His own candor and justice, how 
have they been exhibited towards the motives 
of others, while he has been at so much pains 
to maintain, what nobody has disputed, the 
purity of his own ? Why, Sir, he has asked 
7vhen, and kow, and why New England votes 
were found going for measures favorable to the 
West. He has demanded to be informed 
whether all this did not begin in 1825, and while 
the election of President was still pending. 

Sir, to these questions retort would be justi- 
fied ; and it is both cogent and at hand. Never- 
theless, I will answer the inquiry, not by retort, 
but by facts. I will tell the gentleman ivhen^. 
and hoWy and why New England has supjjorted 
measures favorable to the West. I have al- 
ready referred to the early history of the gov- 
ernment, to the first acquisition of the lands, to 
the original laws for disposing of them, and for 
governing the territories where they lie ; and 
have shown the influence of New England men 
and New England principles in all these leading 
measures. I should not be pardoned were I to 
go over that ground again. Coming to more 
recent times, and to measures of a less general 
character, I have endeavored to prove that every 
thing of this kind, designed for Western im- 
provement, has depended on the votes of New 
England ; all this is true beyond the power 
of contradiction. And now. Sir, there are two 
measures to which I will refer, not so ancient 
as to belong to the early history of the public 

lOI 



Daniel Webster 

lands, and not so recent as to be on this side of 
the period when the gentleman charitably imag- 
ines a new direction may have been given to 
New England feeling and New England votes. 
These measures, and the New England votes 
in support of them, may be taken as samples 
and specimens of all the rest. 

In 1820 (observe, Mr. President, in 1820) the 
people of the West besought Congress for a re- 
duction in the price of lands. In favor of that 
reduction, New England, with a delegation of 
forty members in the other house, gave thirty- 
three votes, and one only against it. The four 
Southern States, with more than fifty members, 
gave thirty-two votes for it, and seven against 
it. Again, in 1821 (observe again. Sir, the 
time), the law passed for the relief of the pur- 
chasers of the pubHc lands. This was a meas- 
ure of vital importance to the West, and more 
especially to the Southwest. It authorized the 
relinquishment of contracts for lands which had 
been entered into at high prices, and a reduc- 
tion in other cases of not less than thirty-seven 
and a half per cent, on the purchase-money. 
Many millions of dollars, six or seven, I believe, 
probably much more, were relinquished by this 
law. On this bill. New England, with her 
forty members, gave more affirmative votes 
than the four Southern States, with their fifty- 
two or fifty-three members. These two are far 
the most important general measures respecting 
the public lands which have been adopted 
102 



Reply to Hayne 

within the last twenty years. They took place 
in 1820 and 1S21. That is the time when. 

As to the manner how., the gentleman already 
sees that it was by voting in solid column for 
the required relief ; and, lastly, as to the cause 
why, I tell the gentleman it was because the 
members from New England thought the meas- 
ures just and salutary ; because they enter- 
tained towards the West neither envy, hatred, 
nor malice ; because they deemed it becoming 
them, as just and enlightened public men, to 
meet the exigency which had arisen in the 
West with the appropriate measure of relief ; 
because they felt it due to their own characters, 
and the characters of their New England pred- 
ecessors in this government, to act towards 
the new States in the spirit of a liberal, patron- 
izing, magnanimous policy. So much, Sir, for 
the cause why ; and I hope that by this time, 
Sir, the honorable gentleman is satisfied ; if 
not, I do not know whejt, or how, or why he 
ever will be. 

Having recurred to these two important 
measures, in answer to the gentleman's in- 
quiries, I must now beg permission to go back 
to a period somewhat earlier, for the purpose of 
still further showing how much, or rather how 
little, reason there is for the gentleman's in- 
sinuation that political hopes or fears, or party 
associations, were the grounds of these New 
England votes. And after what has been said, 
I hope it may be forgiven me if I allude to some 
103 



Daniel Webster 

political opinions and votes of my own, of very 
little public importance certainly, but which, 
from the time at which they were given and 
expressed, may pass for good witnesses on this 
occasion. 

This government, Mr. President, from its 
origin to the peace of 1815, had been too much 
engrossed with various other important con- 
cerns to be able to turn its thoughts inward, 
and look to the development of its vast internal 
resources. In the early part of President 
Washington's administration, it was fully oc- 
cupied with completing its own organization, 
providing for the public debt, defending the 
frontiers, and maintaining domestic peace. 
Before the termination of that administration, 
the fires of the French Revolution blazed forth, 
as from a new-opened volcano, and the whole 
breadth of the ocean did not secure us from its 
effects. The smoke and the cinders reached 
us, though not the burning lava. Difficult and 
agitating questions, embarrassing to govern- 
ment and dividing public opinion, sprung out 
of the new state of our foreign relations, and 
were succeeded by others, and yet again by 
others, equally embarrassing and equally ex- 
citing division and discord, through the long 
series of twenty years, till they finally issued in 
the war with England. Down to the close of 
that war, no distinct, marked, and deliberate 
attention had been given, or could have been 
given, to the internal condition of the country, 
104 



Reply to Hay lie 

its capacities of improvement, or the constitu- 
tional power of the government in regard to 
objects connected with such improvement. 

The peace, Mr. President, brought about an 
entirely new and a most interesting state of 
things ; it opened to us other prospects and 
suggested other duties. We ourselves were 
changed, and the whole world was changed. 
The pacification of Europe, after June, 1S15, 
assumed a firm and permanent aspect. The 
nations evidently manifested that they were 
disposed for peace. Some agitation of the 
waves might be expected, even after the storm 
had subsided, but the tendency was, strongly 
and rapidly, towards settled repose. 

It so happened, Sir, that I was at that time a 
member of Congress, and, like others, naturally 
turned my thoughts to the contemplation of the 
recently altered condition of the country and 
of the world. It appeared plainly enough to 
me, as well as to wiser and more experienced 
men, that the policy of the government would 
naturally take a start in a new direction ; be- 
cause new directions would necessarily be given 
to the pursuits and occupations of the people. 
We had pushed our commerce far and fast, un- 
der the advantage of a neutral flag. But there 
were now no longer flags, either neutral or bel- 
ligerent. The harvest of neutrality had been 
great, but we had gathered it all. With the 
peace of Europe, it was obvious there would 
spring up in her circle of nations a revived and 
105 



Daniel Webster 

invigorated spirit of trade, and a new activity 
in all the business and objects of civilized life. 
Hereafter, our commercial gains were to be 
earned only by success in a close and intense 
competition. Other nations would produce for 
themselves, and carry for themselves, and 
manufacture for themselves, to the full extent 
of their abilities. The crops of our plains would 
no longer sustain European armies, nor our 
ships longer supply those whom war had ren- 
dered unable to supply themselves. It was ob- 
vious, that, under these circumstances, the 
country would begin to survey itself, and to 
estimate its own capacity of improvement. 

And this improvement, — how was it to be ac- 
complished, and who was to accomplish it ? 
We were ten or twelve millions of people, 
spread over almost half a world. We were 
more than twenty States, some stretching:along 
the same seaboard, some along the same line 
of inland frontier, and others on opposite banks 
of the same vast rivers. Two considerations at 
once presented themselves with great force, in 
looking at this state of things. One was, that 
that great branch of improvement which con- 
sisted in furnishing new facilities of intercourse 
necessarily ran into different States in every 
leading instance, and would benefit the citizens 
of all such States. No one State, therefore, in 
such cases, would assume the whole expense, 
nor w^as the cooperation of several States to be 
expected. Take the instance of the Delaware 
io6 



Reply to Hayne 

breakwater. It will cost several millions of 
money. Would Pennsylvania alone ever have 
constructed it ? Certainly never, while this 
Union lasts, because it is not for her sole bene- 
fit. Would Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and 
Delaware have united to accomplish it at their 
joint expense ? Certainly not, for the same 
reason. It could not be done, therefore, but 
by the general government. The same may be 
"said of the large inland undertakings, except 
that, in them, government, instead of bearing 
the whole expense, cooperates with others who 
bear a part. The other consideration is, that 
the United States have the means. They enjoy 
the revenues derived from commerce, and the 
States have no abundant and easy sources of 
public income. The custom-houses fill the 
general treasury, while the States have scanty 
resources, except by resort to heavy direct 
taxes. 

Under this view of things, I thought it neces- 
sary to settle, at least for myself, some definite 
notions with respect to the powers of the gov- 
ernment in regard to internal affairs. It may 
not savor too much of self -commendation to re- 
mark, that, with this object, I considered the 
Constitution, its judicial construction, its con- 
temporaneous exposition, and the whole history 
of the legislation of Congress under it ; and I 
arrived at the conclusion, that government had 
power to accomplish sundry objects, or aid in 
their accomplishment, which are now commonly 
107 



Daniel Webster 

spoken of as Internal Improvements. That 
conclusion, Sir, may have been right, or it may 
have been wrong. I am not about to argue 
the grounds of it at large. I say only, that it 
was adopted and acted on even so early as in 
1816. Yes, Mr. President, I made up my opin- 
ion, and determined on my intended course of 
political conduct, on these subjects, in the Four- 
teenth Congress, in 1816. And now, Mr. Presi- 
dent, I have further to say, that I made up 
these opinions, and entered on this course of 
political conduct, Teucro diice. Yes, Sir, I pur- 
sued in all this a South Carolina track on 
the doctrines of internal improvement. South 
Carolina, as she was then represented in the 
other house, set forth in 1S16 under a fresh and 
leading breeze, and I was among the followers. 
But if my leader sees new lights and turns a 
sharp corner, unless I see new lights also, I 
keep straight on m the same path. I repeat, 
that leading gentlemen from South Carolina 
Avere first and foremost in behalf of the doc- 
trines of internal improvements, when those 
doctrines came first to be considered and acted 
upon in Congress. The debate on the bank 
question, on the tariff of 1816, and on the direct 
tax, will show who was who, and what was 
what, at that time. 

The tariff of 1816, (one of the plain cases of 

oppression and usurpation, from which, if the 

government does not recede, individual States 

may justly secede from the government,) is. Sir, 

108 



Reply to Hayne 



in truth, a South Carolina tariff, supported by- 
South CaroUna votes. But for those votes, it 
could not have passed in the form in which it 
did pass ; whereas, if it had depended on Massa- 
chusetts votes, it would have been lost. Does 
not the honorable gentleman well know all this ? 
There are certainly those who do, full well, 
know it all. I do not say this to reproach South 
Carolina. I only state the fact ; and I think it 
will appear to be true, that among the earliest 
and boldest advocates of the tariff, as a measure 
of protection, and on the express ground of 
protection, were leading gentlemen of South 
Carolina in Congress. I did not then, and can- 
not now, understand their language in any 
other sense. While this tariff of 1816 was under 
discussion in the House of Representatives, an 
honorable gentleman from Georgia, now of this 
house, moved to reduce the proposed duty on 
cotton. He failed, by four votes. South Caro- 
lina giving three votes (enough to have turned 
the scale) against his motion. The act, vSir, 
then passed, and received on its passage the 
support of a majority of the Representatives of 
South Carolina present and voting. This act 
is the first in the order of those now denounced 
as plain usurpations. We see it daily in the 
list, by the side of those of 1824 and 1828, as a 
case of manifest oppression, justif3dng disunion. 
1 put it home to the honorable member from 
South Carolina, that his own State was not only 
" art and part" in this measure, but the causa 
109 



Daniel Webster 

catisans. Without her aid, this seminal princi- 
ple of mischief, this root of Upas, could not have 
been planted. I have already said, and it is 
true, that this act proceeded on the ground of 
protection. It interfered directly with existing 
interests of great value and amount. It cut up 
the Calcutta cotton trade by the roots, but it 
passed, nevertheless, and it passed on the prin- 
ciple of protecting manufactures, on the princi- 
ple against free trade, on the principle opposed 
to that which lets ics alone. 

Such, Mr. President, were the opinions of im- 
portant and leading gentlemen from South 
Carolina, on the subject of internal improve- 
ment, in 1816. I went out of Congress the next 
year, and, returning again in 1823, thought I 
found South Carolina where I had left her. I 
really supposed that all things remained as 
they were, and that the South Carolina doctrine 
of internal improvements would be defended 
by the same eloquent voices, and the same 
strong arms, as formerly. In the lapse of these 
six years, it is true, political associations had 
assumed a new aspect and new divisions. A 
strong party had arisen in the South hostile to 
the doctrine of internal improvements. Anti- 
consolidation was the flag under which this 
party fought ; and its supporters inveighed 
against internal improvements, much after the 
manner in which the honorable gentleman has 
now inveighed against them, as part and parcel 
of the system of consolidation. "Whether this 
no 



Reply to Hayne 

party arose in South Carolina itself, or in the 
neighborhood, is more than I know. 1 think 
the latter. However that may have been, there 
were those found in South Carolina ready to 
make war upon it, and who did make intrepid 
war upon it. Names being regarded as things 
in such controversies, they bestowed on the 
anti-improvement gentlemen the appellation of 
Radicals. Yes, Sir, the appellation of Radi- 
cals, as a term of distinction applicable and ap- 
plied to those who denied the liberal doctrines 
of internal improvement, originated, according 
to the best of my recollection, somewhere be- 
tween .North Carolina and Georgia. Well, Sir, 
these mischievous Radicals were to be put 
down, and the strong arm of South Carolina 
was stretched out to put them down. About 
this time I returned to Congress. The battle 
with the Radicals had been fought, and our 
South Carolina champions of the doctrines of 
internal improvement had nobly maintained 
their ground, and were understood to have 
acliieved a victory. We looked upon them as 
conquerors. They had driven back the enemy 
with discomfiture, a thing, by the way, Sir, 
which is not always performed when it is prom- 
ised. A gentleman to whom I have already 
referred in this debate had come into Congress, 
during my absence from it, from South Caro- 
lina, and had brought with him a high reputa- 
tion for ability. He came from a school wdth 
which we had been acquainted, et 7ioscitnr a 
III 



Daniel Webster 

sociis. I hold in my hand, Sir, a printed speech 
of this distinguished gentleman, " on Internal 
Improvements," delivered about the period to 
which I now refer, and printed with a few in- 
troductory remarks upon co7isolidatio7i ; in 
which, Sir, I think he quite consolidated the 
arguments of his opponents, the Radicals, if to 
crush be to consolidate. I give you a short but 
significant quotation from these remarks. He 
is speaking of a pamphlet, then recently pub- 
lished, entitled "Consolidation;" and having 
alluded to the question of renewing the charter 
of the former Bank of the United States, he 
says : — 

'* Moreover, in. the early history of parties, and when 
Mr. Crawford advocated a renewal of the old charter, 
it was considered a Federal measure ; which internal 
improvement never was^ as this author erroneously 
states. This latter measure originated in the admin- 
istration of Mr. Jefferson, with the appropriation for 
the Cumberland Road ; and was first proposed, as a 
system, by Mr. Calhoun, and carried through the 
House of Representatives by a large majority of the 
Republicans, including almost every one of the lead- 
ing men who carried us through the late war." 

So, then, internal improvement is not one of 
the Federal heresies. One paragraph more. 
Sir: — 

"The author in question, not content with denounc- 
ing as Federalists, General Jackson, Mr. Adams, Mr. 
Calhoun, and the majority of the South Carolina 
delegation in Congress, modestly extends the de- 
nunciation to Mr. Monroe and the whole Republican 
party. Here are his words :— ' During the administra- 
112 



Reply to Hay lie 



tion of Mr. Monroe much has passed which the Re- 
publican party would be glad to approve if they 
could ! ! But the principal feature, and that which 
has chiefiy elicited these observations, is the renewal 
of the System of Internal Improvements.' Now 
this measure was adopted by a vote of 115 to 86 of a 
Republican Congress, and sanctioned by a Republican 
President. Who, then, is this author, who assumes 
the high prerogative of denouncing, and the name of 
the Republican party, the Republican administration 
of the country? A denunciation including within its 
sweep Calhoun, Lowndes, and Cheves, men who will be 
regarded as the brightest ornaments of South Caro- 
lina, and the strongest pillars of the Republican party, 
as long as the late war shall be remembered, and talents 
and patriotism shall be regarded as the proper objects 
of the admiration and gratitude of a free people ! ! " 

Such are the opinions, Sir, which were main- 
tained by South CaroHna gentlemen, in the 
House of Representatives, on the subject of in- 
ternal improvements, when I took my seat there 
as a member from Massachusetts in 1S23. But 
this is not all. We had a bill before us, and 
passed it in that house, entitled, "An Act to 
procure the necessary surveys, plans, and esti- 
mates upon the subject of roads and canals." 
It authorized the President to cause surveys 
and estimates to be made of the routes of such 
roads and canals as he might deem of national 
importance in a commercial or military point of 
view, or for the transportation of the mail, and 
appropriated thirty thousand dollars out of the 
treasury to defray the expense. This act, 
though preliminary in its nature, covered the 
whole ground. It took for granted the com- 
113 



Daniel Webster 

plete power of internal improvement, as far as 
any of its advocates had ever contended for it. 
Having passed the other house, the bill came 
up to the Senate, and was here considered 
and debated in April, 1824. The honorable 
member from South Carolina was a member 
of the Senate at that time. While the bill 
was under consideration here, a motion was 
made to add the following proviso : — " Pro- 
vided, That nothing herein contained shall be 
construed to affirm or admit a power in Con- 
gress, on their own authority, to make roads or 
canals within any of the States of the Union," 
The yeas and nays were taken on this proviso, 
and the honorable member voted in the nega- 
tive ! The proviso failed. 

A motion was then made to add this proviso, 
viz :— " Provided, That the faith of the United 
States is hereby pledged, that no money shall 
ever be expended for roads or canals, except it 
shall be among the several States, and in the 
same proportion as direct taxes are laid and 
assessed by the provisions of the Constitution." 
The honorable member voted against this pro- 
viso also, and it failed. The bill was then put 
on its passage, and the honorable member voted 
for it, and it passed, and became a law. 

Now, it strikes me, Sir, that there is no main- 
taining these votes, but upon the power of in- 
ternal improvement, in its broadest sense. In 
truth, these bills for surveys and estimates have 
always been considered as test questions ; they 
114 



Reply to Hayne 



show who is for and who against internal im- 
provement. This law itself went the whole- 
length, and assumed the full and complete 
l^ower. The gentleman's votes sustained that 
power, in every form in which the various 
propositions to amend presented it. He went 
for the entire and unrestrained authority, with- 
out consulting the States, and without agreeing 
to any proportionate distribution. And now 
suffer me to remind 3'ou, Mr. President, that it. 
is this very same power, thus sanctioned, in 
every form, by the gentleman's own opinion, 
which is so plain and manifest a usurpation, 
that the State of South Carolina is supposed to 
be justified in refusing submission to any laws 
carrying the power into effect. Truly, Sir, is 
not this a little too hard ? May we not crave 
some mercy, under favor and protection of the 
gentleman's own authority ? Admitting that a 
road, or a canal, must be written down fiat 
usurpation as was ever committed, may we find 
no mitigation in our respect for his j^lace, and 
his vote, as one that knows the law ? 

The tariff, which South Carolina had an effi- 
cient hand in establishing, in 18 16, and this as- 
serted power of internal improvement, ad- 
vanced by her in the same year, and, as we 
have seen, approved and sanctioned by her 
Representatives in 1S24, these two measures, 
are the great grounds on which she is now 
thought to be justified in breaking up the 
Union, if she sees fit to break it up ! 
1^5 



Daniel Webster 

I may now safely say, I think, that we have 
liad the authority of leading and distinguished 
gentlemen from South Carolina in support of 
the doctrine of internal improvement. I re- 
peat, that, up to 1824, I for one followed South 
Carolina ; but when that star, in its ascension, 
veered off in an unexpected direction, I relied 
on its light no longer. 

Here the Vice-President said, " Does the chair under- 
stand the gentleman from Massachusetts to say that 
the person now occupying the chair of the Senate has 
■changed his opinions on the subject of internal im- 
provements? " 

From nothing ever said lo me, Sir, have I 
had reason to know of any change in the opin- 
ions of the person filling the chair of the Senate. 
If such change has taken place, I regret it. I 
speak generally of the State of South Carolina. 
Individuals we know there are, who hold opin- 
ions favorable to the power. An application 
for its exercise, in behalf of a public work in 
South Carolina itself, is now pending, I believe, 
in the other house, presented by members from 
that State. 

I have thus, Sir, perhaps not without some 
tediousness of detail, shown, if I am in error 
on the subject of internal improvement, how, 
and in what company, I fell into that error. 
If I am wrong, it is apparent who misled 
me. 

I go to other remarks of the honorable mem- 
ber ; and I have to complain of an entire mis- 
116 



Reply to Haync 

apprehension of what I said on the subject of 
the national debt, though I can hardly perceive 
how any one could misunderstand me. What 
I said was, not that I wished to put off the pay- 
ment of the debt, but, on the contrary, that I 
had always voted for every measure for its re- 
duction, as uniformly as the gentleman himself. 
He seems to claim the exclusive merit of a dis- 
position to reduce the public charge. I do not 
allow it to him. As a debt, I was, I am for 
paying it, because it is a charge on our finances, 
and on the industry of the country. But I ob- 
served, that I thought I perceived a morbid 
fervor on that subject, an excessive anxiety to 
pay off the debt, not so much because it is a. 
debt simply, as because, while it lasts, it fur- 
nishes one objection to disunion. It is, while 
it continues, a tie of common interest. I did 
not impute such motives to the honorable mem- 
ber himself, but that there is such a feeling in 
existence I have not a particle of doubt. The 
most I said was, that if one effect of the debt 
was to strengthen our Union, that effect itself 
was not regretted by me, however much others 
might regret it. The gentleman has not seen 
how to reply to this, otherwise than by suppos- 
ing me to have advanced the doctrine that a 
national debt is a national blessing. Others, I 
must hope, will find much less difficulty in un- 
derstanding me. I distinctly and pointedly 
cautioned the honorable member not to under- 
stand me as expressing an opinion favorable ta 
117 



Daniel Webster 

the continuance of the debt. I repeated this 
•caution, and repeated it more than once ; but 
it was thrown away. 

On yet another point, I was still more unac- 
countably misunderstood. The gentleman had 
harangued against ' ' consolidation. ' ' I told him, 
in reply, that there was one kind of consolida- 
tion to which I was attached, and that was the 
consolidation of our Union ; that this was pre- 
cisely that consolidation to which I feared 
others were not attached, and that such con- 
solidation was the very end of the Constitution, 
the leading object, as they had informed us 
themselves, which its framers had kept in view. 
I turned to their communication, and read their 
very words, " the consolidation of the Union," 
and expressed my devotion to this sort of con- 
solidation. I said, in terms, that I wished not 
in the slightest degree to augment the powers 
of this government ; that my object was to 
preserve, not to enlarge ; and that by consoli- 
dating the Union I understood no more than 
the strengthening of the Union, and perpetu- 
ating it. Having been thus explicit, having 
thus read from the printed book the precise words 
which I adopted, as expressing my own senti- 
ments, it passes comprehension how any man 
could understand me as contending for an exten- 
sion of the powers of the government, or for con- 
solidation in that odious sense in which it means 
an accumulation, in the federal government, 
of the powers properly belonging to the States. 
iiS 



Reply to Hayne 

I repeat, Sir, that, in adopting the sentiment 
of the framers of the Constitution, I read their 
language audibly, and word for word ; and I 
pointed out the distinction, just as fully as I 
have now done, between the consolidation of 
the Union and that other obnoxious consolida- 
tion which I disclaimed. And yet the honor- 
able member misunderstood me. The gentle- 
man had said that he wished for no fixed rev- 
enue, — not a shilling. If by a word he could 
convert the Capitol into gold, he would not do 
it. Why all this fear of revenue ? Why, Sir, 
because, as the gentleman told us, it tends to 
consolidation. Now this can mean neither 
more nor less than that a common revenue is a 
common interest, and that all common interests 
tend to preserve the union of the States. I 
confess I like that tendency ; if the gentleman 
dislikes it, he is right in deprecating a shilling 
of fixed revenue. So much, Sir, for consolida- 
tion. 

As well as I recollect the course of his re- 
marks, the honorable gentleman next recurred 
to the subject of the tariff. He did not doubt 
the word must be of unpleasant sound to me, 
and proceeded, with an effort neither new nor 
attended with new success, to involve me and 
my votes in inconsistency and contradiction. 
I am happy the honorable gentleman has fur- 
nished me an opportunity of a timely remark 
or two on that subject. I was glad he ap- 
proached it, for it is a question I enter upon 
119 



Daniel Webster 

without fear from any body. The strenuous 
toil of the gentleman has been to raise an in- 
consistency between my dissent to the tariff in 
1824, and my vote in 1828. It is labor lost. He 
pays undeserved compliment to my speech in 
1824 ; but this is to raise me high, that my fall, 
as he would have it, in 1828, may be more sig- 
nal. Sir, there was no fall. Between the 
ground I stood on in 1824 and that I took in 
1828, there was not only no precipice, but no 
declivity. It was a change of position to m.eet 
new circumstances, but on the same level. A 
plain tale explains the whole matter. In 18 16 
I had not acquiesced in the tariff, then sup- 
ported by South Carolina. To some parts of it, 
especially, I felt and expressed great repug- 
nance. I held the same opinions in 1820, at 
the meeting in Faneuil Hall, to which the gen- 
tleman has alluded. I said then, and say now, 
that, as an original question, the authority of 
Congress to exercise the revenue power, with 
direct reference to the protection of manufac- 
tures, is a questionable authority, far more 
questionable, in my judgment, than the power 
of internal improvements. I must confess, Sir, 
that in one respect some impression has been 
made on my opinions lately. Mr. Madison's 
publication has put the power in a very strong 
light. He has placed it, I must acknowledge, 
upon grounds of construction and argument 
which seem impregnable. But even if the 
power were doubtful, on the face of the Consti- 
120 



Reply to Hayne 

tution itself, it had been assumed and asserted 
in the first revenue law ever passed tinder that 
same Constitution ; and on this ground, as a 
matter settled by contemporaneous practice, I 
had refrained from expressing the opinion that 
the tariff laws transcended constitutional limits, 
as the gentleman supposes. What I did say at 
Faneuil Hall, as far as I now remember, was, 
that this was originally matter of doubtful con- 
struction. The gentleman himself, I suppose, 
thinks there is no doubt about it, and that the 
laws are plainly against the Constitution. Mr. 
Madison's letters, already referred to, contain, 
in my judgment, by far the most able exposi- 
tion extant of this part of the Constitution, He 
has satisfied me, so far as the practice of the 
government had left it an open question. 

With a great majority of the Representatives 
of Massachusetts, I voted against the tariff of 
1824. My reasons were then given, and I will 
not now repeat them. But, notwithstanding 
our dissent, the great States of New York, 
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky went for 
the bill, in almost unbroken column, and it 
passed. Congress and the President sanctioned 
it, and it became the law of the land. What, 
then, were we to do? Our only option was, 
either to fall in with this settled course of pub- 
lic policy, and accommodate ourselves to it as 
well as we could, or to embrace the South Caro- 
lina doctrine, and talk of nullifying the statute 
by State interference. 



Daniel Webster 

This last alternative did not suit our princi- 
ples, and of course we adopted the former. In 
1827, the subject came again before Congress, 
on a proposition to afford some relief to the 
branch of wool and woollens. We looked upon 
the system of protection as being fixed and 
settled. The law of 1S24 remained. It had 
gone into full operation, and, in regard to some 
objects intended by it, perhaps most of them, 
had produced all its expected effects. No man 
proposed to repeal it ; no man attempted to re- 
new the general contest on its principle. But, 
owing to subsequent and unforeseen occur- 
rences, the benefit intended by it to wool and 
woollen fabrics had not been realized. Events 
not known here when the law passed had taken 
place, which defeated its object in that par- 
ticular respect. A measure was accordingly 
brought forward to meet this precise deficiency, 
to remedy this particular defect. It was lim- 
ited to wool and woollens. Was ever any thing 
more reasonable ? If the policy of the tariff 
laws had become established in principle, as 
the permanent policy of the government, should 
they not be revised and amended, and made 
equal, like other laws, as exigencies should 
arise, or justice require ? Because we had 
doubted about adopting the system, were we to 
refuse to cure its manifest defects, after it had 
been adopted, and when no one attempted its 
repeal? And this, Sir, is the inconsistency so 
much bruited. I had voted against the tariff 
122 



Reply to Hayne 

of 1824, but it passed ; and in 1S27 and 1828, I 
voted to amend it, in a point essential to the 
interest of my constituents. Where is the in- 
consistency ? Could I do otherwise ? Sir, does 
political consistency consist in always giving 
negative votes? Does it require of a public 
man to refuse to concur in amending laws, be- 
cause the}^ passed against his consent? Hav- 
ing voted against the tariff originally, does con- 
sistency demand that I should do all in my 
power to maintain an unequal tariff, burden- 
some to my own constituents in many respects, 
favorable in none ? To consistency of that sort, 
I lay no claim. And there is another sort to 
which I lay as little, and that is, a kind of con- 
sistency by which persons feel themselves as 
much bound to oppose a proposition after it has 
become a law of the land as before. 

The bill of 1827, limited, as I have said, to the 
single object in which the tariff of 1S24 had 
manifestly failed in its effect, passed the House 
of Representatives, but \vas lost here. We 
had then the act of 1828. I need not recur to 
the history of a measure so recent. Its enemies 
spiced it with whatsoever they thought would 
render it distasteful ; its friends took it, drugged 
as it was. Vast amounts of property, many 
millions, had been invested in manufactures, 
under the inducements of the act of 1824. 
Events called loudly, as I thought, for further 
regulation to secure the degree of protection 
intended by that act. I was disposed to vote 
123 



Daniel Webster . 

for such regulation, and desired nothing more ; 
but certainly was not to be bantered out of my 
purpose by a threatened augmentation of duty 
on molasses, put into the bill for the avowed 
purpose of making it obnoxious. The vote 
may have been right or w^rong, wise or unwise ; 
but it is little less than absurd to allege against 
it an inconsistency with opposition to the 
former law. 

Sir, as to the general subject of the tariff, I 
have little now to say. Another opportunity 
may be presented. I remarked the other day, 
that this policy did not begin with us in New 
England ; and yet, Sir, New England is 
charged with vehemence as being favorable, or 
charged wath equal vehemence as being un- 
favorable, to the tariff policy, just as best suits 
the time, place, and occasion for making some 
charge against her. The credulity of the pub- 
lic has been put to its extreme capacity of false 
impression relative to her conduct in this par- 
ticular. Through all the South, during the 
late contest, it was New England policy and a 
New England administration that were afflict- 
ing the country with a tariff beyond all endur- 
ance ; while on the other side of the Alleghanies 
even the act of 1828 itself, the very sublimated 
essence of oppression, according to Southern 
opinions, was pronounced to be one of those 
blessings for which the West was indebted to 
the " generous South." 

With large investments in manufacturing 
124 



Reply to Hayne 

establishments, and many and various interests 
connected with and dependent on them, it is 
not to be expected that New England, any 
more than other portions of the country, will 
now consent to any measure destructive or 
highly dangerous. The duty of the govern- 
ment, at the present moment, would seem to 
be to preserve, not to destroy ; to maintain the 
position which it has assumed ; and, for one, 1 
shall feel it an indispensable obligation to hold 
it steady, as far as in my power, to that degree 
of protection which it has undertaken to be- 
stow. No more of the tariff. 

Professing to be provoked by what he chose 
to consider a charge made by me against South 
Carolina, the honorable member, Mr. President, 
has taken up a new crusade against New Eng- 
land. Leaving altogether the subject of the 
public lands, in which his success, perhaps, had 
been neither distinguished nor satisfactory, and 
letting go, also, of the topic of the tariff, he 
sallied forth in a general assault on the opin- 
ions, politics, and parties of New England, as 
they have been exhibited in the last thirty 
5^ears. This is natural. The " narrow policy" 
of the public lands had proved a legal settle- 
ment in South Carolina, and was not to be re- 
moved. The "accursed policy" of the tariff, 
also, had established the fact of its birth and 
parentage in the same State. No wonder, 
therefore, the gentleman wished to carry the 
war, as he expressed it, into the enemy's coun- 
125 



Daniel Webster 

try. Prudently willing to quit these subjects, 
he was, doubtless, desirous of fastening on 
others, which could not be transferred south of 
Mason and Dixon's line. The politics of New 
England became his theme ; and it was in this 
part of his speech, I think, that he menaced me 
with such sore discomfiture. Discomfiture ! 
Why, Sir, when he attacks any thing which I 
maintain, and overthrows it, when he turns the 
right or left of any position which I take up, 
when he drives me from any ground I choose 
to occupy, he may then talk of discomfiture, but 
not till that distant day. What has he done ? 
Has he maintained his own charges ? Has he 
proved what he alleged ? Has he sustained 
himself in his attack on the government, and 
on the history of the North, in the matter of 
the public lands ? Has he disproved a fact, re- 
futed a proposition, weakened an argument, 
maintained by me ? Has he come within beat 
of drum of any position of mine ? O, no ; but 
he has "carried the war into the enemy's 
country" ! Carried the war into the enemy's 
country ! Yes, Sir, and what sort of a war has 
he made of it ? Why, Sir, he has stretched a 
drag-net over the whole surface of perished 
pamphlets, indiscreet sermons, frothy para- 
graphs, and fuming popular addresses ; over 
whatever the pulpit in its moments of alarm, 
the press in its heats, and parties in their ex- 
travagance, have severally thrown off in times 
of general excitement and violence. He has 
126 



Reply to Hay lie 

thus swept together a mass of such things as, 
but that they are now old and cold , the public 
health would have required him rather to leave 
in their state of dispersion. For a good long 
hour or two, we had the unbroken pleasure of 
listening to the honorable member, while he re- 
cited with his usual grace and spirit, and with 
evident high gusto, speeches, pamphlets, ad- 
dresses, and all the et cceteras of the political 
press, such as warm heads produce in warm 
times ; and such as it would be " discomfiture" 
indeed for any one, whose taste did not delight 
in that sort of reading, to be obliged to peruse. 
This is his war. This it is to carry war into the 
enemy's country. It is in an invasion of this 
sort, that he flatters himself with the expecta- 
tion of gaining laurels fit to adorn a Senator's 
brow ! 

Mr. President, I shall not, it will not, I trust, 
be expected that I should, either now or at any 
time, separate this farrago into parts, and an- 
swer and examine its components. I shall 
barely bestow upon it all a general remark or 
two. In the run of forty years, Sir, under this 
Constitution, we have experienced sundry suc- 
cessive violent party contests. Party arose, in- 
deed, with the Constitution itself, and, in some 
form or other, has attended it through the 
greater part of its history. Whether any other 
constitution than the old Articles of Confedera- 
tion was desirable, was itself a question on 
which parties divided ; if a new constitution 
127 



Daniel Webster 

were framed, what powers should be given to 
it was another question ; and when it had been 
formed, what was, in fact, the just extent of the 
powers actually conferred was a third. Par- 
ties, as we know, existed under the first admin- 
istration, as distinctly marked as those which 
have manifested themselv^es at any subsequent 
period. The contest immediately preceding 
the political change in 1801, and that, again, 
which existed at the commencement of the late 
war, are other instances of party excitement, of 
something more than usual strength and in- 
tensity. In all these conflicts there was, no 
doubt, much of violence on both and all sides. 
It would be impossible, if one had a fancy for 
such employment, to adjust the relative quan- 
tum of violence between these contending par- 
ties. There was enough in each, as must al- 
ways be expected in popular governments. 
With a great deal of popular and decorous dis- 
cussion, there was mingled a great deal, also, 
of declamation, virulence, crimination, and 
abuse. In regard to any party, probably, at 
one of the leading epochs in the history of par- 
ties, enough may be found to make out another 
inflamed exhibition, not unlike that with which 
the honorable member has edified us. For my- 
self. Sir, I shall not rake among the rubbish of 
bygone times, to see what I can find, or whether 
I cannot find something by which I can fix a 
blot on the escutcheon of any State, any party, 
or any part of the country. General Washing- 



Reply to Hayne 

ton's administration was steadily and zealously- 
maintained, as we all know, by New England. 
It was violently opposed elsewhere. We know 
in what quarter he had the most earnest, con- 
stant, and persevering support, in all his great 
and leading measures. We know where his 
private and personal character was held in the 
highest degree of attachment and veneration ; 
and we know, too, where his measures were 
opposed, his services slighted, and his character 
vilified. We know, or we might know, if we 
turned to the journals, who expressed respect, 
gratitude, and regret, when he retired from the 
chief magistracy, and who refused to express 
either respect, gratitude, or regret. I shall not 
open those journals. Publications more abusive 
or scurrilous never saw the light, than were 
sent forth against Washington, and all his lead- 
ing measures, from presses south of New Eng- 
land. But I shall not look them up. I employ 
no scavengers, no one is in attendance on me, 
furnishing such means of retaliation ; and if 
there were, with an ass's load of them, with a 
bulk as huge as that which the gentleman him- 
self has produced, I would not touch one of 
them. I see enough of the violence of our own 
times, to be no way anxious to rescue from for- 
getfulness the extravagances of times past. 

Besides, what is all this to the present pur- 
pose ? It has nothing to do with the public 
lands, in regard to which the attack was begun ; 
and it has nothing to do with those sentiments 
129 



Daniel Webster 

and opinions which, I have thought, tend to 
disunion, and all of which the honorable mem- 
ber seems to have adopted himself, and under- 
taken to defend. New England has, at times, 
so argues the gentleman, held opinions as dan- 
gerous as those which he now holds. Suppose 
this were so ; why should he therefore abuse 
New England ? If he finds himself counte- 
nanced by acts of hers, how is it that, while he 
relies on these acts, he covers, or seeks to cover, 
their authors with reproach ? But, Sir, if, in 
the course of forty years, there have been un- 
due effervescences of party in New England, 
has the same thing happened nowhere else ? 
Party animosity and party outrage, not in New 
England, but elsewhere, denounced President 
Washington, not only as a Federalist, but as a 
Tory, a British agent, a man who in his high 
office sanctioned corruption. But does the hon- 
orable member suppose, if I had a tender here 
who should put such an effusion of wickedness 
and folly into my hand, that I would stand up 
and read it against the South ? Parties ran 
into great heats again in 1799 and 1800. What 
was said, Sir, or rather what was not said, in 
those years, against John Adams, one of the 
committee that drafted the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, and its admitted ablest defender on 
the floor of Congress ? If the gentleman wishes 
to increase his stores of party abuse and frothy 
violence, if he has a determined proclivity to 
such pursuits, there are treasures of that sort 
130 



Reply to Hayne 



south of the Potomac, much to his taste, yet 
untouched. I shall not touch them. 

The parties which divided the country at the 
commencement of the late war were violent. 
But then there was violence on both sides, and 
violence in every State. Minorities and majori- 
ties were equally violent. There was no more 
violence against the war in New England, than 
in other States ; nor any more appearance of 
violence, except that, owing to a dense popula- 
tion, greater facility of assembling, and more 
presses, there may have been more in quantity 
spoken and printed there than in some other 
places. In the article of sermons, too. New 
England is somewhat more abundant than 
South Carolina ; and for that reason the chance 
of finding here and there an exceptionable one 
may be greater. I hope, too, there are more 
good ones. Opposition may have been more 
formidable in New England, as it embraced a 
larger portion of the whole population ; but it 
was no more unrestrained in principle, or vio- 
lent in manner. The minorities dealt quite as 
harshly with their own State governments as 
the majorities dealt with the administration 
here. There were presses on both sides, popu- 
lar meetings on both sides, ay, and pulpits on 
both sides also. The gentleman's purveyors 
have only catered for him among the produc- 
tions of one side. I certainly shall not supply 
the deficiency by furnishing samples of the other. 
I leave to him, and to them, the whole concern, 
m 



Daniel Webster 

It is enough for me to say, that if, in any 
part of this their grateful occupation, if, in all 
their researches, they find any thing in the his- 
tory of Massachusetts, or New England, or in 
the proceedings of any legislative or other pub- 
lic body, disloyal to the Union, speaking slight- 
ingly of its value, proposing to break it up, or 
recommending non-intercourse with neighbor- 
ing States, on account of difference of political 
opinion, then. Sir, I give them all up to the 
honorable gentleman's unrestrained rebuke ; 
expecting, however, that he will extend his 
buffetings in like manner to all similar pro- 
feedings, wherever else fouiid. 

The gentleman. Sir, has spoken at large of 
former parties, now no longer in being, by their 
received appellations, and has undertaken to 
instruct us, not only in the knowledge of their 
principles, but of their respective pedigrees 
also. He has ascended to their origin, and run 
out their genealogies. With most exemplary 
modesty, he speaks of the party to which he 
professes to have himself belonged, as the true 
Pure, the only honest, patriotic party, derived 
by regular descent, from father to son, from 
the time of the virtuous Romans ! Spreading 
before us 'C^q family tree of political parties, 
he takes especial care to show himself snugly 
perched on a popular bough ! He is wakeful 
to the expediency of adopting such rules of de- 
scent as shall bring him in, to the exclusion of 
others, as an heir to the inheritance of all pub- 

1^2 



Reply to Hayne 

lie virtue and all true political principle. His 
party and his opinions are sure to be orthodox ; 
heterodoxy is confined to his opponents. He 
spoke, Sir, of the Federalists, and I thought I 
saw some eyes begin to open and stare a little, 
when he ventured on that ground. I expected 
he w^ould draw his sketches rather lightly, when 
he looked on the circle round him, and espe- 
cially if he should cast his thoughts to the high 
places out of the Senate. Nevertheless, he 
went back to Rome, ad annum urbis conditce, 
and found the fathers of the Federalists in the 
primeval aristocrats of that renowned city ! 
He traced the flow of Federal blood down 
through successive ages and centuries, till he 
brought it into the veins of the American 
Tories, of whom, by the way, there were twenty 
in the Carolinas for one in Massachusetts. 
From the Tories he followed it to the Federal- 
ists ; and, as the Federal party was broken up, 
and there was no possibility of transmitting it 
further on this side the Atlantic, he seems to 
have discovered that it has gone off collaterally, 
though against all the canons of descent, into 
the Ultras of France, and finally become extin- 
guished, like exploded gas, among the adher- 
ents of Don Miguel ! This, Sir, is an abstract 
of the gentleman's history of Federalism, I 
am not about to controvert it. It is not, at pres- 
ent, worth the pains of refutation ; because,. 
Sir, if at this day any one feels the sin of Fed- 
eralism lying heavily on his conscience, he can 
133 



Daniel Webster 

easily procure remission. He may even obtain 
an indulgence, if he be desirous of repeating the 
same transgression. It is an affair of no difH- 
cdlty to get into this same right line of patriotic 
descent. A man now-a-days is at liberty to 
choose his political parentage. He may elect 
his own father. Federalist or not, he may, if 
he choose, claim to belong to the favored stock, 
and his claim will be allowed. He may carry 
back his pretensions just as far as the honor- 
able gentleman himself : nay, he may make 
himself out the honorable gentleman's cousin, 
and prove, satisfactorily, that he is descended 
from the same political great-grandfather. All 
this is allowable. We all know a process, Sir, 
by which the whole Essex Junto could, in one 
hour, be all washed white from their ancient 
Federalism, and come out, every one of them, 
original Democrats, dyed in the wool ! Some 
of them have actually undergone the operation, 
and they say it is quite easy. The only incon- 
venience it occasions, as they tell us, is a slight 
tendency of the blood to the face, a soft suflEu- 
sion, which, however, is very transient, since 
nothing is said by those whom they join calcu- 
lated to deepen the red on the cheek, but a 
prudent silence is observed in regard to all the 
past. Indeed, Sir, some smiles of approbation 
have been bestowed, and some crumbs of com- 
fort have fallen, not a thousand miles from the 
door of the Hartford Convention itself. And if 
the author of the Ordinance of 1787 possessed 
134 



Reply to Hayne 

the other requisite quahfications, there is no 
knowing, notwithstanding his FederaUsm, to 
what heights of favor he might not yet attain. 

Mr. President, in carrying his warfare, such 
as it is, into New England, the honorable gen- 
tleman all along professes to be acting on the 
defensive. He chooses to consider me as hav- 
ing assailed South Carolina, and insists that he 
comes forth only as her champion, and in her 
defence. Sir, I do not admit that I made any 
attack whatever on South Carolina. Nothing 
like it. The honorable member, in his first 
speech, expressed opinions, in regard to rev- 
enue and some other topics, which I heard both 
with pain and with surprise. I told the gentle- 
man I was aware that such sentiments were en- 
tertained out of the government, but had not 
expected to find them advanced in it ; that I 
knew there were persons in the South who 
speak of our Union with indifference or doubt, 
taking pains to magnify its evils, and to say 
nothing of its benefits ; that the honorable 
member himself, I was sure, could never be 
one of these ; and I regretted the expression of 
such opmions as he had avowed, because I 
thought their obvious tendency was to encour- 
age feelmgs of disrespect to the Union, and to 
impair its strength. This, Sir, is the sum and 
substance of all I said on the subject. And this 
constitutes the attack which called on the chiv- 
alry of the gentleman, in his own opinion, to 
harry us with such a foray among the party 
135 



Daniel Webster 

pamphlets and party proceedings of Massachu- 
setts ! If he means that I spoke with dissatis- 
faction or disrespect of the ebulhtions of indi- 
viduals in South Carolina, it is true. But if he 
means that I assailed the character of the State, 
her honor, or patriotism, that I reflected on her 
history or her conduct, he has not the slightest 
ground for any such assumption. I did not 
even refer, I think, in my observations, to any 
collection of individuals. I said nothing of the 
recent conventions. I spoke in the most guard- 
ed and careful manner, and only expressed my 
regret for the publication of opinions, which I 
presumed the honorable member disapproved 
as much as myself. In this, it seems, I was 
mistaken. I do not remember that the gentle- 
man has disclaimed any sentiment, or any opin- 
ion, of a supposed anti-union tendency, which 
on all or any of the recent occasions has been 
expressed. The whole drift of his speech has 
been rather to prove, that, in divers times and 
manners, sentiments equally liable to my ob- 
jection have been avowed in New England. 
And one would suppose that his object, in this 
reference to Massachusetts, was to find a prec- 
edent to justify proceedings in the South, 
were it not for the reproach and contumely 
with which he labors, all along, to load these 
his own chosen precedents. By way of defend- 
ing South Carolina from what he chooses to 
think an attack on her, he first quotes the ex- 
ample of Massachusetts, and then denounces 
136 



Reply to Hayne 

that example in good set terms. This twofold 
purpose, not very consistent, one would think, 
with itself, was exhibited more than once in the 
course of his speech. He referred, for instance, 
to the Hartford Convention. Did he do this 
for authority, or for a topic of reproach ? Ap- 
parently for both, for he told us that he should 
find no fault with the mere fact of holding such 
a convention, and considering and discussing 
such questions as he supposes were then and 
there discussed ; but what rendered it obnox- 
ious was its being held at the time, and under 
the circumstances of the country then existing. 
We were in a war, he said, and the country 
needed all our aid ; the hand of government 
required to be strengthened, not weakened ; 
and patriotism should have postponed such pro- 
ceedings to another day. The thing itself, 
then, is a precedent ; the time and manner of 
it only, a subject of censure. 

Now, Sir, I go much further, on this point, 
than the honorable member. Supposing, as 
the gentleman seems to do, that the Hartford 
Convention assembled for any such purpose as 
breaking up the Union, because they thought 
unconstitutional laws had been passed, or to 
consult on that subject, or to calculate the 
value of the Union ; supposing this to be their 
purpose, or any part of it, then I say the meet- 
ing itself was disloyal, and was obnoxious to 
censure, whether held in time of peace or time 
of war, or under whatever circumstances. The 
137 



Daniel Webster 

material question is the object. Is dissolution 
the object? If it be, external circumstances 
may make it a more or less aggravated case, 
but cannot affect the principle. I do not hold, 
therefore. Sir, that the Hartford Convention 
was pardonable, even to the extent of the gen- 
tleman's admission, if its objects were really 
such as have been imputed to it. Sir, there 
never was a time, under any degree of excite- 
ment, in which the Hartford Convention, or 
any other convention, could have maintained 
itself one moment in New England, if as- 
sembled for any such purpose as the gentleman 
says would have been an allowable purpose. 
To hold conventions to decide constitutional 
law ! To try the binding validity of statutes 
by votes in a convention ! Sir, the Hartford 
Convention, I presume, would not desire that 
the honorable gentleman should be their de- 
fender or advocate, if he puts their case upon 
such untenable and extravagant grounds. 

Then, Sir, the gentleman has no fault to find 
with these recently promulgated South Carolina 
opinions. And certainly he need have none ; 
for his own sentiments, as now advanced, and 
advanced on reflection, as far as I have been 
able to comprehend them, go the full length of 
all these opinions. I propose. Sir, to say some- 
thing on these, and to consider how far they 
are just and constitutional. Before doing that, 
however, let me observe that the eulogium pro- 
nounced by the honorable gentleman on the 
13S 



Reply to Hayne 



character of the State of South Carolina, for 
her Revolutionary and other merits, meets my 
hearty concurrence. I shall not acknowledge 
that the honorable member goes before me in 
regard for whatever of distinguished talent, or 
distinguished character. South Carolina has 
produced. I claim part of the honor, I partake 
in the pride, of her great names. I claim them 
for countrymen, one and all, the Laurenses, 
the Rutledges, the Pinckneys, the Sumpters, 
the Marions, Americans all, whose fame is no 
more to be hemmed in by State lines, than 
their talents and patriotism were capable of 
being circumscribed within the same narrow 
limits. In their day and generation, they 
served and honored the country, and the whole 
country ; and their renown is of the treasures of 
the whole country. Him whose honored name 
the gentleman himself bears, — does he esteem 
me less capable of gratitude for his patriotism, 
or sympathy for his sufferings, than if his eyes 
had first opened upon the light of Massachu- 
setts, instead of South Carolina ? Sir, does he 
suppose it in his power to exhibit a Carolina 
name so bright, as to produce envy in my 
bosom ? No, Sir, increased gratification and 
delight, rather, I thank God, that, if I am 
gifted with little of the spirit which is able to 
raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I 
trust, of that other spirit, which would drag 
angels down. When I shall be found, Sir, in 
my place here in the Senate, or elsewhere, to 
139 



Daniel Webster 

sneer at public merit, because it happens to 
spring up beyond the little limits of my own 
State or neighborhood ; when I refuse, for any 
such cause, or for any cause, the homage due 
to American talent, to elevated patriotism, to 
sincere devotion to liberty and the country ; 
or, if I see an uncommon endowment of Heav- 
en, if I see extraordinary capacity and virtue, 
in any son of the South, and if, moved by local 
prejudice or gangrened by State jealousy, 1 get 
up here to abate the tithe of a hair from his just 
character and just fame, may my tongue cleave 
to the roof of my mouth ! 

Sir, let me recur to pleasing recollections ; 
let me indulge in refreshing remembrance of 
the past ; let me remind you that, in early 
times, no States cherished greater harmony, 
both of principle and feeling, than Massachu- 
setts and South Carolina. Would to God that 
harmony might again return ! Shoulder to 
shoulder they went through the Revolution, 
hand in hand they stood round the administra- 
tion of Washington, and felt his own great arm 
lean on them for support. Unkind feeling, if 
it exist, alienation, and distrust are the growth, 
unnatural to such soils, of false principles since 
sown. They are weeds, the seeds of which that 
same great arm never scattered. 

Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium 

upon Massachusetts ; she needs none. There 

she is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves. 

There is her history ; the world knows it by 

140 



Reply to Hay lie 

heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is 
Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and 
Bunker Hill ; and there they will remain for 
ever. The bones of her sons, falling in the 
great struggle for Independence, now lie 
mingled with the soil of every State from New 
England to Georgia ; and there they will lie 
for ever. And, Sir, where American Liberty 
raised its first voice, and where its youth was 
nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in 
the strength of its manhood and full of its orig- 
inal spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound 
it, if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk 
at and tear it, if folly and madness, if uneasi- 
ness under salutary and necessary restraint, 
shall succeed in separating it from that Union, 
by which alone its existence is made sure, it 
will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle 
in which its infancy was rocked ; it will stretch 
forth its arm with whatever of vigor it may still 
retain over the friends who gather round it ; 
and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the 
proudest monuments of its own glory, and on 
the very spot of its origin. 

There yet remains to be performed, Mr. Presi- 
dent, by far the most grave and important duty, 
which I feel to be devolved on me by this occa- 
sion. It is to state, and to defend, what I con- 
ceive to be the true principles of the Constitu- 
tion under which we are here assembled. I 
might well have desired that so weighty a task 
141 



Daniel Webster 

should have fallen into other and abler hands. 
I could have wished that it should have been 
executed by those whose character and experi- 
ence give weight and influence to their opin- 
ions, such as cannot possibly belong to mine. 
But, Sir, I have met the occasion, not sought 
it ; and I shall proceed to state my own senti- 
ments, without challenging for them any par- 
ticular regard, with studied plainness, and as 
much precision as possible. 

I tmderstand the honorable gentleman from 
South Carolina to maintain, that it is a right of 
the State legislatures to interfere, whenever, in 
their judgment, this government transcends its 
constitutional limits, and to arrest the operation 
of its laws. 

I understand him to maintain this right, as a 
right existing under the Constitution, not as a 
right to overthrow it on the ground of extreme 
necessity, such as would justify violent revolu- 
tion. 

I understand him to maintain an authority, 
on the part of the States, thus to interfere, for 
the purpose of correcting the exercise of power 
by the general government, of checking it, and 
of compelling it to conform to their opinion of 
the extent of its powers. 

I understand him to maintain, that the ulti- 
mate power of judging of the constitutional ex- 
tent of its own authority is not lodged exclu- 
sively in the general government, or any branch 
of it ; but that, on the contrary, the States may 
142 



Reply to Hayne 



lawfully decide for themselves, and each State 
for itself, whether, in a given case, the act of 
the general government transcends its power. 

I understand him to insist, that, if the ex- 
igency of the case, in the opinion of any State 
government, require it, such State government 
may, by its own sovereign authority, annul an 
act of the general government which it deems 
plainly and palpably unconstitutional. 

This is the sum of what I understand from 
him to be the South Carolina doctrine, and the 
doctrine which he maintains. I propose to con- 
sider it, and compare it with the Constitution. 
Allow me to say, as a preliminary remark, that 
I call this the South Carolina doctrine only be- 
cause the gentleman himself has so denomi- 
nated it, I do not feel at liberty to say that 
South Carolina, as a State, has ever advanced 
these sentiments. I hope she has not, and 
never may. That a great majority of her peo- 
ple are opposed to the tariff laws, is doubtless 
true. That a majority, somewhat less than 
that just mentioned, conscientiously believe 
these laws unconstitutional, may probably also 
be true. But that any majority holds to the 
right of direct State interference at State dis- 
cretion, the right of nullifying acts of Congress 
by acts of State legislation, is more than I 
know, and what I shall be slow to believe. 

That there are individuals besides the honor- 
able gentleman who do maintain these opin- 
ions, is quite certain. I recollect the recent ex- 
143 



Daniel Webster 

pression of a sentiment, which circumstances 
attending its utterance and publication justify 
us in supposing was not unpremeditated. 
"The sovereignty of the State,— never to be 
controlled, construed, or decided on, but by 
her own feelings of honorable justice." 

Mr. Hayne here rose and said, that, for the purpose 
of being clearly understood, he would state that his 
proposition was in the words of the Virginia resolu- 
tion, as follows : — 

"That this assembly doth explicitly and peremp- 
torily declare, that it views the powers of the federal 
government, as resulting from the compact to which 
the States are parties, as limited by the plain sense 
and intention of the instrument constituting that com- 
pact, as no farther valid than they are authorized by 
the grants enumerated in that compact; and that, in 
case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise 
of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the 
States who are parties thereto have the right, and are 
in duty bound, to interpose, for arresting the progress 
of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective 
limits the authorities, rights, and liberties appertain- 
ing to them." 

Mr. Webster resumed : — 

I am quite aware, Mr. President, of the ex- 
istence of the resolution which the gentleman 
read, and has now repeated, and that he relies 
on it as his authority. I know the source, too, 
from which it is understood to have proceeded. 
I need not say that I hav^e much respect for the 
constitutional opinions of Mr. Madison ; they 
would weigh greatly with me always. But be- 
fore the authority of his opinion he vouched for 
the gentleman's proposition, it will be proper 
144 



Reply to Haync 



to consider what is the fair interpretation of 
that resolution, to which Mr. Madison is under- 
stood to have given his sanction. As the gen- 
tleman construes it, it is an authority for him. 
Possibly, he may not have adopted the right 
construction. That resolution declares, that, m 
the case of the dangerous exercise of powers 
not granted by the general governmetit, the 
States may mterpose to arrest the progress 
of the evil. But how interpose, and what does 
this declaration purport? Does it mean no 
more than that there may be extreme cases, in 
which the people, in any mode of assembling, 
may resist usurpation, and relieve themselves 
from a tyrannical government ? No one will 
deny this. Such resistance is not only acknowl- 
edged to be just in America, but in England 
also Blackstone admits as much, in the theory, 
and practice, too, of the English constitution. 
We, Sir, who oppose the Carolina doctrine, do 
not deny that the people may, if they choose, 
throw off any government when it becomes op- 
pressive and intolerable, and erect a better in 
its stead. We all know that civil institutions 
are established for the public benefit, and that 
when they cease to answer the ends of their ex- 
istence they may be changed. But I do not 
understand the doctrine now contended for to 
be that, which, for the sake of distinction, we 
may call the right of revolution. I understand 
the gentleman to maintain, that, without revo- 
lution, without civil commotion, without rebel- 
145 



Daniel Webster 

lion, a remedy for supposed abuse and trans- 
gression of the powers of the general govern- 
ment lies in a direct appeal to the interference 
of the State governments. 

Mr. Hayne here rose and said : He did not contend 
for the mere right of revolution, but for the right of 
constitutional resistance. What he maintained was, 
that in case of a plain, palpable violation of the Con- 
stitution by the general government, a State may 
interpose ; and that this interposition is constitutional. 

Mr. "Webster resumed :— 

So, Sir, I understood the gentleman, and am 
happy to find that I did not misunderstand him. 
What he contends for is, that it is constitutional 
to interrupt the administration of the Constitu- 
tion itself, in the hands of those who are chosen 
and sworn to administer it, by the direct inter- 
ference, in form of law, of the States, in virtue 
of their sovereign capacity. The inherent right 
in the people to reform their government I do 
not deny ; and they have another right, and 
that is, to resist unconstitutional laws, without 
overturning the government. It is no doctrine 
of mine that unconstitutional laws bind the 
people. The great question is. Whose preroga- 
tive is it to decide on the constitutionality or 
unconstitutionality of the laws ? On that, the 
main debate hinges. The proposition, that, in 
case of a supposed violation of the Constitution 
by Congress, the States have a constitutional 
right to interfere and annul the law of Con- 
gress, is the proposition of the gentleman. I 
do not admit it. If the gentleman had intended 
146 



Reply to Hayne 



no more than to assert the right of revolution 
for justifiable cause, he would have said only 
what all agree to. But I cannot conceive that 
there can be a middle course, between submis- 
sion to the laws, when regularly pronounced 
constitutional, on the one hand, and open re- 
sistance, which is revolution or rebellion, on 
the other. I say, the right of a State to annul 
a law of Congress cannot be maintained, but 
on the ground of the inalienable right of man 
to resist oppression ; that is to say, upon the 
ground of revolution. I admit that there is an 
ultimate violent remedy, above the Constitution 
and in defiance of the Constitution, which may 
be resorted to when a revolution is to be justi- 
fied. But I do not admit, that, under the Con- 
stitution and in conformity with it, there is any 
mode in which a State government, as a mem- 
ber of the Union, can interfere and stop the 
progress of the general government, by force 
of her own laws, under any circumstances 
whatever. 

This leads us to inquire into the origin of this 
government and the source of its power. 
Whose agent is it? Is it the creature of the 
State legislatures, or the creature of the peo- 
ple ? If the government of the United States 
be the agent of the State governments, then 
they may control it, provided they can agree in 
the manner of controlling it ; if it be the agent 
of the people, then the people alone can control 
it, restrain it, modify, or reform it. It is ob- 
147 



Daniel Webster 

servable enough, that the doctrine for which 
the honorable gentleman contends leads him to 
the necessity of maintaining, not only that this 
general government is the creature of the 
States, but that it is the creature of each of the 
States severally, so that each may assert the 
power for itself of determining whether it acts 
within the limits of its authority. It is the ser- 
vant of four-and-twenty masters, of different 
wills and different purposes, and yet bound to 
obey all. This absurdity (for it seems no less) 
arises from a misconception as to the origin of 
this government and its true character. It is, 
Sir, the people's Constitution, the people's gov- 
ernment, made for the people, made by the peo- 
ple, and answerable to the people. The people of 
the United States have declared that this Con- 
stitution shall be the supreme law. "We must 
either admit the proposition, or dispute their 
authority. The States are, unquestionably, 
sovereign, so far as their sovereignty is not 
affected by this supreme law. But the State 
legislatures, as political bodies, however sover- 
eign, are yet not sovereign over the people. 
So far as the people have given power to the 
general government, so far the grant is un- 
questionably good, and the government holds 
of the people, and not of the State govern- 
ments. We are all agents of the same supreme 
power, the people. The general government 
and the State governments derive their author- 
ity from the same source. Neither can, in rela- 
14S 



Reply to Hayne 

tion to the other, be called primary, though one 
is definite and restricted, and the other general 
and residuary. The national government pos- 
sesses those powers which it can be shown the 
people have conferred on it, and no more. All 
the rest belongs to the State governments, or 
to the people themselves. So far as the people 
have restrained State sovereignty, by the ex- 
pression of their will, in the Constitution of the 
United States, so far, it must be admitted, 
State sovereignty is effectually controlled. I 
do not contend that it is, or ought to be, con- 
trolled farther. The sentiment to which I have 
referred propounds that State sovereignty is 
only to be controlled by its own " feeling of 
justice" ; that is to say, it is not to be controlled 
at all, for one who is to follow his own feelings 
is under no legal control. Now, however men 
may think this ought to be, the fact is, that the 
people of the United States have chosen to im- 
pose control on State sovereignties. There are 
those, doubtless, who wish they had been left 
without restraint ; but the Constitution has or- 
dered the matter differently. To make war, 
for instance, is an exercise of sovereignty ; but 
the Constitution declares that no State shall 
make war. To coin money is another exercise 
of sovereign power ; but no State is at liberty 
to coin money. Again, the Constitution says 
that no sovereign State shall be so sovereign 
as to make a treaty. These prohibitions, it 
must be confessed, are a control on the State 
149 



Daniel Webster 

sovereignty of South Carolina, as well as of the 
other States, which does not arise " from her 
own feehngs of honorable justice." The opin- 
ion referred to, therefore, is in defiance of the 
plainest provisions of the Constitution. 

There are other proceedings of public bodies 
which have already been alluded to, and to 
which I refer again, for the purpose of ascer- 
taining more fully what is the length and 
breadth of that doctrine, denominated the Caro- 
lina doctrine, which the honorable member has 
now stood up on this floor to maintain. In one 
of them I find it resolved, that " the tariff of 
1828, and every other tariff designed to promote 
one branch of industry at the expense of others, 
is contrary to the meaning and intention of the 
federal compact ; and such a dangerous, palpa- 
ble, and deliberate usurpation of power, by a 
determined majority, wielding the general gov- 
ernment beyond the limits of its delegated 
powers, as calls upon the States which compose 
the suffering minority, in their sovereign capac- 
ity, to exercise the powers which, as sovereigns, 
necessarily devolve upon them, when their com- 
pact is violated." 

Observe, Sir, that this resolution holds the 
tarifE of 1828, and every other tariff designed to 
promote one branch of industry at the expense 
of another, to be such a dangerous, palpable, 
and deliberate usurpation of power, as calls 
upon the States, in their sovereign capacity, to 
interfere by their own authority. This denun- 
150 



Reply to Hayne 

elation, Mr. President, you will please to ob- 
serve, includes our old tariff of 1816, as well as 
all others ; because that was established to pro- 
mote the interest of the manufacturers of cot- 
ton, to the manifest and admitted injury of the 
Calcutta cotton trade. Observe, again, that all 
the qualifications are here rehearsed and 
charged upon the tariff, which are necessary to 
bring the case within the gentleman's proposi- 
tion. The tariff is a usurpation ; it is a danger- 
ous usurpation ; it is a palpable usurpation ; it 
is a deliberate usurpation. It is such a usurpa- 
tion, therefore, as calls upon the States to exer- 
cise their right of interference. Here is a case, 
then, within the gentleman's principles, and all 
his qualifications of his principles. It is a case 
for action. The Constitution is plainly, dan- 
gerously, palpably, and deliberately violated ; 
and the States must interpose their own au- 
thority to arrest the law. Let us suppose the 
State of South Carolina to express this same 
opinion, by the voice of her legislature. That 
would be very imposing ; but what then ? Is 
the voice of one State conclusive ? It so hap- 
pens that, at the very moment when South 
Carolina resolves that the tariff laws are uncon- 
stitutional, Pennsylvania and Kentucky resolve 
exactly the reverse. They hold those laws to 
be both highly proper and strictly constitu- 
tional. And now. Sir, how does the honorable 
member propose to deal with this case ? How 
does he relieve us from this difficulty, upon any 
151 



Daniel Webster 

principle of his ? His construction gets us into 
it ; how does he propose to get us out ? 

In Carolina, the tariff is a palpable, deliberate 
usurpation ; Carolina, therefore, may nullify 
it, and refuse to pay the duties. In Pennsyl- 
vania, it is both clearly constitutional and 
highly expedient ; and there the duties are to 
be paid. And yet we live under a govern- 
ment of uniform laws, and under a Constitution 
too, which contains an express provision, as it 
happens, that all duties shall be equal in all the 
States. Does not this approach absurdity ? 

If there be no power to settle such questions, 
independent of either of the States, is not the 
whole Union a rope of sand? Are we not 
thrown back again, precisely, upon the old 
Confederation ? 

It is too plain to be argued. Four-and-twenty 
interpreters of constitutional law, each with a 
power to decide for itself, and none with au- 
thority to bind any body else, and this constitu- 
tional law the only bond of their union ! "What 
is such a state of things but a mere connection 
during pleasure, or, to use the phraseology of 
the times, during feeling ? And that feeling, 
too, not the feeling of the people, who estab- 
lished the Constitution, but the feeling of the 
State governments. 

In another of the South Carolina addresses, 
having premised that the crisis requires " all 
the concentrated energy of passion," an atti- 
tude of open resistance to the laws of the Union 
152 



Reply to Hayne 

is advised. Open resistance to the laws, then, 
is the constitutional remedy, the conservative 
power of the State, which the South Carolina 
doctrines teach for the redress of political evils, 
real or imaginary. And its authors further 
say, that, appealing with confidence to the Con- 
stitution itself, to justify their opinions, they 
cannot consent to try their accuracy by the 
courts of justice. In one sense, indeed. Sir, 
this is assuming an attitude of open resistance 
in favor of liberty. But what sort of liberty ? 
The liberty of establishing their own opinions, 
in defiance of the opinions of all others ; the 
liberty of judging and of deciding exclusively 
themselves, in a matter in which others have 
as much right to judge and decide as they ; the 
liberty of placing their own opinions above the 
judgment of all others, above the laws, and 
above the Constitution. This is their liberty, 
and this is the fair result of the proposition con- 
tended for by the honorable gentleman. Or, 
it may be more properly said, it is identical 
with it, rather than a result from it. 

In the same publication we find the follow- 
ing : — " Previousl}- to our Revolution, \vhen the 
arm of oppression was stretched over New Eng- 
land, where did our Northern brethren meet 
wath a braver sympathy than that which sprung 
from the bosoms of Carolinians ? We had no 
extortion, no oppression, no collision with the 
king's ministers, no navigation interests spring- 
ing up, in envious rivalry of England." 
153 



Daniel Webster 

This seems extraordinary language. South 
CaroHna no collision with the king's ministers 
in 1775 ! No extortion ! No oppression ! But, 
Sir, it is also more significant language. Does 
any man doubt the purpose for which it was 
penned ? Can any one fail to see that it was 
designed to raise in the reader's mind the ques- 
tion, whether, at this time, — that is to say, in 
1828, — South Carolina has any collision with the 
king's ministers, any oppression, or extortion, 
to fear from England ? whether, in short, Eng- 
land is not as naturally the friend of South 
Carolina as New England, with her navigation 
interests springing up in envious rivalry of 
England ? 

Is it not strange.. Sir, that an intelligent man 
in South Carolina, in 1S28, should thus labor to 
prove that, in 1775, there was no hostiUty, no 
cause of war, between South Carolina and Eng- 
land ? That she had no occasion, in reference 
to her own interest, or from a regard to her 
own welfare, to take up arms in the Revolution- 
ary contest ? Can any one account for the ex- 
pression of such strange sentiments, and their 
circulation through the State, otherwise than 
by supposing the object to be what I have al- 
ready intimated, to raise the question, if they 
had no " collision'''' (mark the expression) with 
the ministers of King George the Third, in 1775, 
what collision have they, in 1828, with the min- 
isters of King George the Fourth? What is 
there now in the existing state of things, to 
154 



Reply to Hayne 

separate Carolina from Old, more, or rather, 
than from Neio England ? 

Resolutions, Sir, have been recently passed 
by the legislature of South Carolina. I need 
not refer to them ; they go no farther than the 
honorable gentleman himself has gone, and I 
hope not so far. I content myself, therefore, 
with debating the matter with him. 

And now. Sir, what I have first to say on this 
subject is, that at no time, and under no cir- 
cumstances, has New England, or any State in 
New England, or any respectable bod}^ of per- 
sons in New England, or any public man of 
standing in New England, put forth such a 
doctrine as this Carolina doctrine. 

The gentleman has found no case, he can 
find none, to support his own opinions by New 
England authority. New England has studied 
the Constitution in other schools, and under 
other teachers. She looks upon it with other 
regards, and deems more highly and reverently 
both of its just authority and its utility and ex- 
cellence. The history of her legislative pro- 
ceedings may be traced. The ephemeral effu- 
sions of temporary bodies, called together by 
the excitement of the occasion, may be hunted 
up ; they have been hunted up. The opinions 
and votes of her public men, in and out of Con- 
gress, may be explored. It will all be in vain. 
The Carolina doctrine can derive from her 
neither countenance nor support. She rejects 
it now ; she always did reject it ; and till she 
155 



Daniel Webster 

loses her senses, she always will reject it. The 
honorable member has referred to expressions 
on the subject of the embargo law, made in this 
place, by an honorable and venerable gentle- 
man, now favoring us with his presence. He 
quotes that distinguished Senator as saying, 
that, in his judgment, the embargo law was 
unconstitutional, and that therefore, in his 
opinion, the people were not bound to obey it. 
That, Sir, is perfectly constitutional language. 
An unconstitutional law is not binding ; but 
then it does not rest with a resolution or a 
law of a State legislature to decide whether 
an act of Congress be or be not constitutional. 
An unconstitutional act of Congress would not 
bind the people of this District, although they 
have no legislature to interfere in their behalf ; 
and, on the other hand, a constitutional law of 
Congress does bind the citizens of every State, 
although all their legislatures should undertake 
to annul it by act or resolution. The venerable 
Connecticut Senator is a constitutional lawyer, 
of sound principles and enlarged knowledge ; a 
statesman practised and experienced, bred in 
the company of Washington,, and holding just 
views upon the nature of our governments. 
He believed the embargo unconstitutional, and 
so did others ; but what then ? Who did he 
suppose was to decide that question ? The 
State legislatures ? Certainly not. No such 
sentiment ever escaped his lips. 

Let us follow up, Sir, this New England op- 
156 



Reply to Hayne 

position to the embargo laws ; let us trace it, 
till we discern the principle which controlled 
and governed New England throughout the 
whole course of that opposition. We shall then 
see what similarity there is between the New 
England school of constitutional opinions, and 
this modern Carolina school. The gentleman, 
I think, read a petition from some single indi- 
vidual addressed to the legislature of Massa- 
chusetts, asserting the Carolina doctrine ; that 
is, the right of State interference to arrest the 
laws of the Union. The fate of that petition 
shows the sentiment of the legislature. It met 
no favor. The opinions of Massachusetts were 
very different. They had been expressed in 
1798, in answer to the resolutions of Virginia, 
and she did not depart from them, nor bend 
them to the times. Misgoverned, wronged, op- 
pressed, as she felt herself to be, she still held 
fast her integrity to the Union. The gentle- 
man may find in her proceedings much evi- 
dence of dissatisfaction with the measures of 
government, and great and deep dislike to the 
embargo ; all this makes the case so much the 
stronger for her ; for, notwithstanding all this 
dissatisfaction and dislike, she still claimed no 
right to sever the bonds of the Union. There 
was heat, and there was anger in her political 
feeling. Be it so ; but neither her heat nor her 
anger betrayed her into infidelity to the govern- 
ment. The gentleman labors to prove that she 
disliked the embargo as much as South Caro- 
157 



Daniel Webster 

lina dislikes the tariff, and expressed her dislike 
as strongly. Be it so ; but did she propose the 
Carolina remedy? did she threaten to interfere, 
by State authority, to annul the laws of the 
Union ? That is the question for the gentle- 
man's consideration. 

No doubt, Sir, a great majority of the people 
of New England conscientiously believed the 
embargo law of 1807 unconstitutional ; as con- 
scientiously, certainly, as the people of South 
Carolina hold that opinion of the tariff. They 
reasoned thus : Congress has power to regulate 
commerce ; but here is a law, they said, stop- 
ping all commerce, and stopping it indefinitely. 
The law is perpetual ; that is, it is not limited 
in point of time, and must of course continue 
until it shall be repealed by some other law. 
It is as perpetual, therefore, as the law against 
treason or murder. Now, is this regulating 
commerce, or destroying it ? Is it guiding, 
controlling, giving the rule to commerce, as a 
subsisting thing, or is it putting an end to it 
altogether ? Nothing is more certain, than that 
a majority in New England deemed this law a 
violation of the Constitution. The very case 
required by the gentleman to justify State inter- 
ference had then arisen. Massachusetts be- 
lieved this law to be "a deliberate, palpable, 
and dangerous exercise of a power not granted 
by the Constitution." Deliberate it was, for it 
was long continued ; palpable she thought it, 
as no words in the Constitution gave the power, 
158 



Reply to Hayne 



and only a construction, in her opinion most 
violent, raised it ; dangerous it was, since it 
threatened utter ruin to her most important in- 
terests. Here, then, was a Carolina case. How 
did Massachusetts deal with it ? It was, as she 
thought, a plain, manifest, palpable violation 
of the Constitution, and it brought ruin to her 
doors. Thousands of families, and hundreds 
of thousands of individuals, were beggared by 
it. While she saw and felt all this, she saw and 
felt also, that, as a measure of national policy, 
it was perfectly futile ; that the country was no 
way benefited by that which caused so much 
individual distress ; that it was efficient only 
for the production of evil, and all that evil in- 
flicted on ourselves. In such a case, under 
such circumstances, how did Massachusetts de- 
mean herself ? Sir, she remonstrated, she 
memorialized, she addressed herself to the gen- 
eral government, not exactly " with the con- 
centrated energy of passion," but with her own 
strong sense, and the energy of sober convic- 
tion. But she did not interpose the arm of her 
own power to arrest the law, and break the em- 
bargo. Far from it. Her principles bound her 
to two things ; and she followed her principles, 
lead where they might. First, to submit to 
every constitutional law of Congress, and sec- 
ondl5\ if the constitutional validity of the law 
be doubted, to refer that question to the de- 
cision of the proper tribunals. The first princi- 
ple is vain and ineffectual without the second. 
159 



Daniel Webster 

A majority of us in New England believed the 
embargo law unconstitutional ; but the great 
question was, and always will be in such cases, 
Who is to decide this ? Who is to judge be- 
tween the people and the government ? And, 
Sir, it is quite plain, that the Constitution of 
the United States confers on the government 
itself, to be exercised by its appropriate depart- 
ment, and under its own responsibility to the 
people, this power of deciding ultimately and 
conclusively upon the just extent of its own 
authority. If this had not been done, we should 
not have advanced a single step beyond the old 
Confederation. 

Being fully of opinion that the embargo law 
was unconstitutional, the people of New Eng- 
land were yet equally clear in the opinion, (it 
was a matter they did doubt upon,) that the 
question, after all, must be decided by the 
judicial tribunals of the United States. Before 
those tribunals, therefore, they brought the 
question. Under the provisions of the law, 
they had given bonds to millions in amount, 
and which were alleged to be forfeited. They 
suffered the bonds to be sued, and thus raised 
the question. In the old-fashioned way of set- 
tling disputes, they went to law. The case 
came to hearing, and solemn argument ; and he 
who espoused their cause, and stood up for them 
against the validity of the embargo act, was 
none other than that great man, of whom the 
gentleman has made honorable mention, Sam- 
i6o 



Reply to Hayne 

uel Dexter. He was then, Sir, in the fulness 
of his knowledge, and the maturity of his 
strength. He had retired from long and dis- 
tinguished public service here, to the renewed 
pursuit of professional duties, carrying with 
him all that enlargement and expansion, all the 
new strength and force, which an acquaintance 
with the more general subjects discussed in the 
national councils is capable of adding to pro- 
fessional attainment, in a mind of true great- 
ness and comprehension. He was a lawyer, 
and he was also a statesman. He had studied 
the Constitution, when he filled public station, 
that he might defend it ; he had examined its 
principles that he might maintain them. More 
than all men, or at least as much as any man, 
he was attached to the general government and 
to the union of the States. His feelings and 
opinions all ran in that direction. A question 
of constitutional law, too, was, of all subjects, 
that one which was best suited to his talents 
and learning. Aloof from technicality, and 
unfettered by artificial rule, such a question 
gave opportunity for that deep and clear 
analysis, that mighty grasp of principle, which 
so much distinguished his higher efforts. 
His very statement was argument ; his infer- 
ence seemed demonstration. The earnestness 
of his own conviction wrought conviction in 
others. One was convinced, and believed, 
and assented, because it was gratifying, 
delightful, to think, and feel, and believe in 
iGi 



Daniel Webster 

unison with an intellect of such evident superi- 
ority. 

Mr. Dexter, Sir, such as I have described 
him, argued the New England cause. He put 
into his effort his whole heart, as well as all the 
powers of his understanding ; for he had 
avowed, in the most public manner, his entire 
concurrence with his neighbors on the point in 
dispute. He argued the cause ; it was lost, and 
New England submitted. The established 
tribunals pronounced the law constitutional, 
and New England acquiesced. Now, Sir, is 
not this the exact opposite of the doctrine of 
the gentleman from South Carolina ? Accord- 
ing to him, instead of referring to the judicial 
tribunals, we should have broken up the em- 
bargo by laws of our own ; we should have re- 
pealed it, quoad New England ; for we had a 
strong, palpable, and oppressive case. Sir, we 
believed the embargo unconstitutional ; but 
still that was matter of opinion, and who was 
to decide it ? We thought it a clear case ; but, 
nevertheless, we did not take the law into our 
own hands, because we did not wish to bring 
about a revolution, nor to break up the Union ; 
for I maintain, that between submission to the 
decision of the constituted tribunals, and revo- 
lution, or disunion, there is no middle ground ; 
there is no ambiguous condition, half allegiance 
and half rebellion. And, Sir, how futile, how 
very futile it is, to admit the right of State in- 
terference, and then attempt to save it from 
162 



Reply to Hayne 

the character of unlawful resistance, by adding 
terms of qualification to the causes and occa- 
sions, leaving all these qualifications, like the 
case itself, in the discretion of the State govern- 
ments. It must be a clear case, it is said, a de- 
liberate case, a palpable case, a dangerous case. 
But then the State is still left at liberty to de- 
cide for herself what is clear, what is deliberate, 
what is palpable, what is dangerous. Do ad- 
jectives and epithets avail any thing ? 

Sir, the human mind is so constituted, that 
the merits of both sides of a controversy appear 
very clear, and very palpable, to those who re- 
spectively espouse them ; and both sides usually 
grow clearer as the controversy advances. 
South Carolina sees unconstitutionality in the 
tariff ; she sees oppression there also, and she 
sees danger. Pennsylvania, with a vision not 
less sharp, looks at the same tariff, and sees no 
such thing in it ; she sees it all constitutional, 
all useful, all safe. The faith of South Carolina 
is strengthened by opposition, and she now not 
only sees, but resolves, that the tariff is palpa- 
bly unconstitutional, oppressive, and danger- 
ous ; but Pennsylvania, not to be behind her 
neighbors, and equally willing to strengthen 
her own faith by a confident asseveration, re- 
solves, also, and gives to every warm affirma- 
tive of South Carolina, a plain, downright, 
Pennsylvania negative. South Carolina, to 
show the strength and unity of her opinion, 
brings her assembly to a unanimity, within 
163 



Daniel Webster 

seven voices ; Pennsylvania, not to be ontdone 
in this respect any more than in others, re- 
duces her dissentient fraction to a single vote. 
Now, Sir, again, I ask the gentleman, What is 
to be done ? Are these States both right ? Is 
he bound to consider them both right ? If not, 
which is in the wrong ? or rather, which has 
the best right to decide ? And if he, and if I, 
are not to know what the Constitution means, 
and what it is, till those two State legislatures, 
and the twenty-two others, shall agree in its 
construction, what have we sworn to, when we 
have sworn to maintain it? I was forcibly 
struck, Sir, with one reflection, as the gentle- 
man went on in his speech. He quoted Mr. 
Madison's resolutions, to prove that a State 
may interfere, in a case of deliberate, palpable, 
and dangerous exercise of a power not granted. 
The honorable member supposes the tariff law 
to be such an exercise of power ; and that con- 
sequently a case has arisen in which the State 
may, if it see fit, interfere by its own law. 
Now it so happens, nevertheless, that Mr. Madi- 
son deems this same tariff law quite constitu- 
tional. Instead of a clear and palpable viola- 
tion, it is, in his judgment, no violation at all. 
So that, while they use his authority for a h5rpo- 
thetical case, they reject it in the very case be- 
fore them. All this. Sir, shows the inherent 
futility, I had almost used a stronger word, of 
conceding this power of interference to the 
State, and then attempting to secure it from 
164 



Reply to Hayne 



abuse by imposing qualifications of which the 
States themselves are to judge. One of two 
things is true ; either the laws of the Union are 
beyond the discretion and beyond the control 
of the States ; or else we have no constitution 
of general government, and are thrust back 
again to the days of the Confederation. 

Let me here say, Sir, that if the gentleman's 
doctrine had been received and acted upon in 
New England, in the times of the embargo and 
non-intercourse, we should probably not now 
have been here. The government would very 
likely have gone to pieces, and crumbled into 
dust. No stronger case can ever arise than ex- 
isted under those laws ; no States can ever en- 
tertain a clearer conviction than the New Eng- 
land States then entertained ; and if they had 
been under the influence of that heresy of opin- 
ion, as I must call it, which the honorable mem- 
ber espouses, this Union would, in all proba- 
bility, have been scattered to the four winds. 
I ask the gentleman, therefore, to apply his 
principles to that case ; I ask him to come forth 
and declare, whether, in his opinion, the New 
England States would have been justified in 
interfering to break up the embargo system 
under the conscientious opinions which they 
held upon it ? Had they a right to annul that 
law ? Does he admit or deny ? If what is 
thought palpably unconstitutional in South 
Carolina justifies that State in arresting the 
progress of the law, tell me whether that which. 
165 



Daniel Webster 

was thought palpably unconstitutional also in 
Massachusetts would have justified her in doing 
the same thing. Sir, I deny the whole doc- 
trine. It has not a foot of ground in the Con- 
stitution to stand on. No public man of repu- 
tation ever advanced it in Massachusetts in the 
warmest times, or could maintain himself upon 
it there at any time. 

I wish now. Sir, to make a remark upon the 
Virginia resolutions of 1798. I cannot under- 
take to say how these resolutions were under- 
stood by those who passed them. Their lan- 
guage is not a little indefinite. In the case of 
the exercise by Congress of a dangerous power 
not granted to them, the resolutions assert the 
right, on the part of the State, to interfere and 
arrest the progress of the evil. This is suscepti- 
ble of more than one interpretation. It may 
mean no more than that the States may inter- 
fere by complaint and remonstrance, or by pro- 
|)osing to the people an alteration of the Fed- 
eral Constitution. This would all be quite un- 
objectionable. Or it may be that no more is 
meant than to assert the general right of revo- 
lution/, as against all governments, in cases of 
intolerable oppression. This no one doubts, 
and this, in my opinion, is all that he who 
framed the resolutions could have meant by it ; 
for I shall not readily believe that he was ever 
of opinion that a State, under the Constitution 
and in conformity with it, could, upon the 
ground of her own opinion of its unconstitu- 
166 



Reply to Hay lie 

tionality, however clear and palpp.ble sue might 
think the case, annul a law of Congress, so far 
as it should oj^erate on herself, by her own 
legislative power. 

I must now beg to ask, Sir, Whence is this 
supposed right of the States derived ? Where 
do they find the power to interfere with the 
laws of the Union ? Sir, the opinion which the 
honorable gentleman maintains is a notion 
founded in a total misapprehension, in my 
judgment, of the origin of this government, 
and of the foundation on which it stands. I 
hold it to be a popular government, erected by 
the people ; those who administer it, responsi- 
ble to the people ; and itself capable of being 
amended and modified, just as the people may 
choose it should be. It is as popular, just as 
truly emanatsing from the people, as the State 
governments. It is created for one purpose ; 
the State governments for another. It has its 
own powers ; they have theirs. There is no 
more authority with them to arrest the opera- 
tion of a law of Congress, than with Congress 
to arrest the operation of their laws. We are 
here to administer a Constitution em.anating 
immediately from the people, and trusted by 
them to our administration. It is not the crea- 
ture of the State governments. It is of no mo- 
ment to the argument, that certain acts of the 
State legislatures are necessary to fill our seats 
in this body. That is not one of their original 
167 



Daniel Webster 

State powers, a part of the sovereignty of the 
State. It is a duty which the people, by the 
Constitution itself, have imposed on the State 
legislatures ; and which they might have left to 
be performed elsewhere, if they had seen fit. 
So they have left the choice of President with 
electors ; but all this does not affect the propo- 
sition that this whole government, President, 
Senate, and House of Representatives, is a 
popular government. It leaves it still all its 
popular character. The governor of a State 
(in some of the States) is chosen, not directly 
by the people, but by those who are chosen by 
the people, for the purpose of performing, 
among other duties, that of electing a governor. 
Is the government of the State, on that account, 
not a popular government ? This government, 
Sir, is the independent offspring of the popular 
will. It is not the creature of State legisla- 
tures ; nay, more, if the whole truth must be 
told, the people brought it into existence, estab- 
lished it, and have hitherto supported it, for the 
very purpose, amongst others, of imposing cer- 
tain salutary restraints on State sovereignties. 
The States cannot now make w^ar ; they cannot 
contract alliances ; they cannot make, each for 
itself, separate regulations of commerce ; they 
cannot lay imposts ; they cannot coin money. 
If this Constitution, Sir, be the creature of State 
legislatures, it must be admitted that it has ob- 
tained a strange control over the volitions of its 
creators. 

i68 



Reply to Hayne 

The people, then, Sir, erected this govern- 
ment. They gave it a Constitution, and in 
that Constitution they have enumerated the 
powers which they bestowed on it. They have 
made it a limited government. They have 
defined its authority. They have restrained it 
to the exercise of such powers as are granted ; 
and all others, they declare, are reserved to the 
States or the people. But, Sir, they have not 
stopped here. If they had, they would have 
accomplished but half their work. No defi- 
nition can be so clear, as to avoid possibility of 
doubt ; no limitation so precise, as to exclude 
all uncertainty. Who, then, shall construe this 
grant of the people ? Who shall interpret their 
will, where it may be supposed they have left it 
doubtful ? With whom do they repose this 
ultimate right of deciding on the powers of the 
government ? Sir, they have settled all this in 
the fullest manner. They have left it with the 
government itself, in its appropriate branches. 
Sir, the very chief end, the main design, for 
which the whole Constitution was framed and 
adopted, was to establish a government that 
should not be obliged to act through State 
agency, or depend on State opinion and State 
discretion. The people had had quite enough 
of that kind of government under the Confed- 
eration. Under that system, the legal action, 
the application of law to individuals, belonged 
exclusively to the States. Congress could only 
recommend ; their acts were not of binding 
169 



Daniel Webster 

force, till the States had adopted and sanctioned 
them. Are we in that condition still ? Are we 
yet at the mercy of State discretion and State 
construction ? Sir, if we are, then vain will be 
our attempt to maintain the Constitution under 
which we sit. 

But, Sir, the people have wisely provided, in 
the Constitution itself, a proper, suitable mode 
and tribunal for settling questions of constitu- 
tional law. There are in the Constitution 
grants of powers to Congress, and restrictions 
on these powers. There are, also, prohibitions 
on the States. Some authority must, therefore, 
necessarily exist, having the ultimate jurisdic- 
tion to fix and ascertain the interpretation of 
these grants, restrictions, and prohibitions. 
The Constitution has itself pointed out, ordained 
and established that authority. How has it 
accomplished this great and essential end ? By 
declaring. Sir, that " the Co7istitntio7i, and the 
laws of the United States made in pursnaiice 
thereof, shall be the supreme law of the lajtd, 
any thing in the co7istitution or laws of any 
State to the contrary notwithstanding. ' ' 

This, Sir, was the first great step. By this 
the supremacy of the Constitution and laws of 
the United States is declared. The people so 
will it. No State law is to be valid which comes 
in conflict with the Constitution, or any law of 
the United States passed in pursuance of it. 
But who shall decide this question of interfer- 
ence ? To whom lies the last appeal? This, 
170 



Reply to Hayne 

Sir, the Constitution itself decides also, by de- 
claring, " that the judicial poioer shall extend 
to all cases arising tinder the Constitution 
and laws of the United States.'" These two 
provisions cover the whole ground. They are, 
in truth, the keystone of the arch ! With these 
it is a government ; without them it is a con- 
federation. In pursuance of these clear and 
express provisions. Congress established, at its 
very first session, in the judicial act, a mode for 
carrying them into full effect, and for bringing 
all questions of constitutional power to the final 
decision of the Supreme Court. It then, Sir, 
became a government. It then had the means 
of self-protection ; and but for this, it would, 
in all probability, have been now among 
things which are past. Havmg constituted the 
government, and declared its powers, the people 
have further said, that, since somebody must 
decide on the extent of these powers, the gov- 
ernment shall itself decide ; subject, always, 
like other popular governments, to its respon- 
sibility to the people. And, now, Sir, I repeat, 
how is it that a State legislature acquires any 
power to interfere ? Who, or what, gives them 
the right to say to the people, " We, who are 
your agents and servants for one purpose, will 
undertake to decide, that your other agents and 
servants, appointed by you for another purpose, 
have transcended the authority you gave them !" 
The reply would be, I think, not impertinent, 
— " Who made you a judge over another's ser- 
171 



Daniel Webster 

vants ? To their own masters they stand or 
fall." 

Sir, I deny this power of State legislatures 
altogether. It cannot stand the test of exami 
nation. Gentlemen may say, that, in an extreme 
case, a State government might protect the 
people from intolerable oppression. Sir, in 
such a case, the people might protect them- 
selves, without the aid of the State govern- 
ments. Such a case warrants revolution. It 
must make, when it comes, a law for itself. A 
nullifying act of a State legislature cannot alter 
the case, nor make resistance any more lawful. 
In maintaining these sentiments, Sir, I am but 
asserting the rights of the people. I state what 
they have declared, and insist on their right to 
declare it. They have chosen to repose this 
power in the general government, and I think 
it my duty to support it, like other constitu- 
tional powers. 

For myself, Sir, I do not admit the compe- 
tency of South Carolina, or any other State, to 
prescribe my constitutional duty ; or to settle, 
between me and the people, the validity of laws 
of Congress, for which I have voted. I decline 
her umpirage. I have not sworn to support the 
Constitution according to her construction of its 
clauses. I have not stipulated, by my oath of 
office or otherwise, to come under any respon- 
sibility, except to the people, and those whom 
they have appointed to pass upon the question, 
whether laws, supported by my votes, conform 
172 



Reply to Hayne 

to the Constitution of the country. And, Sir, 
if we look to the general nature of the case, 
could any thing have been more preposterous, 
than to make a government for the whole 
Union, and yet leave its powers subject, not to 
one interpretation, but to thirteen or twenty- 
four interpretations ? Instead of one tribunal, 
established by all, responsible to all, with power 
to decide for all, shall constitutional questions 
be left to four-and-twenty popular bodies, each 
at liberty to decide for itself, and none bound 
to respect the decisions of others ; and each at 
liberty, too, to give a new construction on 
every new election of its own members? 
Would any thing, with such a principle in it, 
or rather with such a destitution of all principle, 
be fit to be called a government ? No, Sir. It 
should not be denominated a Constitution. It 
should be called, rather, a collection of topics for 
everlasting controvers}'' ; heads of debate for a 
disputatious people. It would not be a govern- 
ment. It would not be adequate to any 
practical good, or fit for any country to live 
tuider. 

To avoid all possibility of being misunder- 
stood, allow me to repeat again, in the fullest 
manner, that I claim no powers for the govern- 
ment by forced or unfair construction. I admit 
that it is a government of strictly limited 
powers ; of enumerated, specified, and par- 
ticularized powers ; and that whatsoever is not 
granted is withheld. But notwithstanding all 
173 



Daniel Webster 

this, and however the grant of powers may be 
expressed, its hmit and extent may yet, in 
some cases, admit of doubt ; and the general 
government would be good for nothing, it 
would be incapable of long existing, if some 
mode had not been provided in which those 
doubts, as they should arise, might be peaceably, 
but authoritatively, solved. 

And now, Mr. President, let me run the 
honorable gentleman's doctrine a little into its 
practical application. Let us look at his proba- 
ble modus operandi. If a thing can be done, 
an ingenious man can tell how it is to be 
done, and I wish to be informed how this State 
interference is to be put in practice, without 
violence, bloodshed, and rebellion. We will 
take the existing case of the tariff law. South 
Carolina is said to have made up her opinion 
upon it. If we do not repeal it (as we probably 
shall not), she will then apply to the case the 
remedy of her doctrine. She will, we must 
suppose, pass a law of her legislature, declar- 
ing the several acts of Congress, usually called 
the tariff laws, null and void, so far as they 
respect South Carolina, or the citizens thereof. 
So far, all is a paper transaction, and easy 
enough. But the collector at Charleston is 
collecting the duties imposed by these tariff 
laws. He, therefore, must be stopped. The 
collector will seize the goods if the tariff duties 
are not paid. The State authorities will under- 
take their rescue, the marshal, with his posse, 
174 



Reply to Hay lie 



will come to the collector's aid, and here the 
contest begins. The militia of the State will be 
called out to sustain the nullifying act. They 
will march, Sir, under a very gallant leader : 
for I believe the honorable member himself 
commands the militia of that part of the State. 
He will raise the nullifying act on his standard, 
and spread it out as his banner ! It will have a 
preamble, setting forth, that the tariff laws are 
palpable, deliberate, and dangerous violations 
of the Constitution ! He will proceed, with this 
banner flying, to the custom-house in Charles- 
ton, 

" AH the while, 
Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds." 

Arrived at the custom-house, he will tell the 
collector that he must collect no more duties 
under any of the tariff laws. This he will be 
somewhat puzzled to say, by the way, with the 
grave countenance, considering what hand 
South Carolina herself had in that of 1816. 
But, Sir, the collector would not, probably, 
desist, at his bidding. He would show him the 
law of Congress, the treasury instruction, and 
his own oath of office. He would say, he 
should perform his duty, come what come 
might. 

Here would ensue a pause ; for they say that 
a certain stillness precedes the tempest. The 
trumpeter would hold his breath awhile, and 
before all this military array should fall on the 
custom-house, collector, clerks, and all, it is 
175 



Daniel Webster 

very probable some of those composing it would 
request of their gallant commander-in-chief to 
be informed a little upon the point of law ; for 
they have, doubtless, a just respect for his 
opinions as a lawyer, as well as for his bravery 
as a soldier. They know he has read Black- 
stone and the Constitution, as well as Turenne 
and Vauban. They would ask him, therefore, 
something concerning their rights in this matter. 
They would inquire, whether it was not some- 
what dangerous to resist a law of the United 
States. What would be the nature of their 
offence, they would wish to learn, if they, by 
military force and array, resisted the execution 
in Carolina of a law of the United States, and 
it should turn out, after all, that the law was 
co7istitutio7ial f He would answer, of course, 
Treason. No lawyer could give any other 
answer. John Fries, he would tell them, had 
learned that, some years ago. How, then, they 
would ask, do you propose to defend us ? We 
are not afraid of bullets, but treason has a way 
of taking people off that we do not much 
relish. How do you propose to defend us ? 
" Look at my floating banner," he would 
reply ; " see there the 7tullifying law ! " Is 
it your opinion, gallant commander, they would 
then say, that, if we should be indicted for 
treason, that same floating banner of yours 
would make a good plea in bar ? ' ' South 
Carolina is a sovereign State," he would reply. 
That is true ; but would the judge admit our 
176 



Reply to Hayne 

plea? "These tariff laws," he would repeat, 
"are unconstitutional, palpably, deliberately, 
dangerously. ' ' That may all be so ; but if the 
tribunal should not happen to be of that opinion, 
shall we swing for it ? We are ready to die for 
our country, but it is rather an awkward busi- 
ness, this dying without touching the ground ! 
After all, that is a sort of hemp tax worse than 
any part of the tariff. 

Mr. President, the honorable gentleman 
would be in a dilemma, like that of another 
great general. He would have a knot before 
him which he could not untie. He must cut it 
with his sword. He must say to his followers, 
" Defend yourselves with your ba3'onets ;" and 
this is war — civil war. 

Direct collision, therefore, between force and 
force, is the unavoidable result of that remedy 
for the revision of unconstitutional laws which 
the gentleman contends for. It must happen 
in the very first case to which it is applied. Is 
not this the plain result ? To resist by force the 
execution of a law, generally, is treason. Can 
the courts of the United States take notice of 
the indulgence of a State to c6mmit treason ? 
The common saying, that a State cannot com- 
mit treason herself, is nothing to the purpose. 
Can she authorize others to do it? If John 
Fries had produced an act of Pennsylvania, 
annulling the law of Congress, would it have 
helped his case? Talk about it as we will, 
these doctrines go the length of revolution. 



Daniel Webster 

They are incompatible with any peaceable 
administration of the government. They lead 
directly to disunion and civil commotion ; and 
therefore it is, that at their commencement, 
when they are first found to be maintained by 
respectable jnen, and in a tangible form, I 
enter my public protest against them all. 

The honorable gentleman argues, that if this 
government be the sole judge of the extent of 
its own powers, whether that right of judging 
be in Congress or the Supreme Court, it equally 
subverts State sovereignty. This the gentle- 
man sees, or thinks he sees, although he can- 
not perceive how the right of judging, in this 
matter, if left to the exercise of State legisla- 
tures, has any tendency to subvert the govern- 
ment of the Union. The gentleman's opinion 
may be, that the right ought not to have been 
lodged with the general government ; he may 
like better such a constitution as we should have 
under the right of State interference ; but I 
ask him to meet me on the plain matter of fact. 
I ask him to meet me on the Constitution itself. 
I ask him if the power is not found there, 
clearly and visibly found there ? 

But, Sir, what is this danger, and what are 
the grounds of it ? Let it be remembered, that 
the Constitution of the United States is not 
unalterable. It is to continue in its present form 
no longer than the people who established it 
shall choose to continue it. If they shall 
become convinced that they have made an in- 
17S 



Reply to Haync 



judicious or inexpedient partition and distribu- 
tion of power between the State governments 
and the general government, they can alter 
that distribution at will. 

If anything be found in the national Consti- 
tution, either by original provision or subse- 
quent interpretation, which ought not to be in 
it, the people know how to get rid of it. If any 
construction, unacceptable to them, be estab- 
lished, so as to become practically a part of the 
Constitution, they will amend it, at their own 
sovereign pleasure. But while the people 
choose to maintain it as it is, while they are 
satisfied with it, and refuse to change it, who 
has given, or who can give, to the State legis- 
latures a right to alter it, either by interference, 
construction, or otherwise ? Gentlemen do not 
seem to recollect that the people have any 
power to do any thing for themselves. They 
imagine there is no safety for them, any longer 
than they are under the close guardianship of 
the State legislatures. Sir, the people have not 
trusted their safety, in regard to the general 
Constitution, to these hands. They have re- 
quired other security, and taken other bonds. 
They have chosen to trust themselves, first, to 
the plain words of the instrument, and to such 
construction as the government themselves, in 
doubtful cases, should put on their own powers, 
under their oaths of office, and subject to their 
responsibility to them ; just as the people of a 
State trust their own State governments with a 
179 



Daniel Webster 

similar power. Secondly, they have reposed 
their trust in the efficacy of frequent elections, 
and in their own power to remove their own 
servants and agents whenever they see cause. 
Thirdly, they have reposed trust in the judicial 
power, which, in order that it might be trust- 
worthy, they have made as respectable, as dis- 
interested, and as independent as was prac- 
ticable. Fourthly, they have seen fit to rely, 
in case of necessity, or high expediency, on 
their known and admitted power to alter or 
amend the Constitution, peaceably and quietly, 
whenever experience shall point out defects or 
imperfections. And, finally, the people of the 
United States have at no time, in no way, 
directly or indirectly, authorized any State 
legislature to construe or interpret their high 
instrument of government ; much less, to inter- 
fere, by their own power, to arrest its course 
and operation. 

If, Sir, the people in these respects had done 
•otherwise than they have done, their constitu- 
tion could neither have been preserved, nor 
would it have been worth preserving. And if 
its plain provisions shall now be disregarded, 
and these new doctrines interpolated in it, it 
will become as feeble and helpless a being as 
its enemies, whether early or more recent, 
could possibly desire. It will exist in every 
State but as a poor dependent on State permis- 
sion. It must borrow leave to be ; and will be, 
no longer than State pleasure, or »State discre- 
iSo 



Reply to Hay no 

tion, sees fit to grant the indulgence, and tO' 
prolong its poor existence. 

But, Sir, although there are fears, there are 
hopes also. The people have preserved this, 
their own chosen Constitution, for forty years, 
and have seen their happiness, prosperity, and 
renown grow with its growth, and strengthen 
with its strength. They are now, generally, 
strongly attached to it. Overthrown by direct as- 
sault, it cannot be ; evaded, undermined, nulli- 
fied, it will not be, if we, and those who shall suc- 
ceed us here, as agents and representatives of the 
people, shall conscientiously and vigilantly dis- 
charge the two great branches of our public trust, 
faithfully to preserve, and wisely to administer it. 

^Ir. President, I have thus stated the reasons 
of my dissent to the doctrines which have been 
advanced and maintained. I am conscious of 
having detained you and the Senate much too 
long. I was drawn into the debate with no 
previous deliberation, such as is suited to the 
discussion of so grave and important a subject. 
But it is a subject of which my heart is full, and 
I have not been willmg to suppress the utter- 
ance of its spontaneous sentiments. I cannot, 
even now, persuade myself to relinquish it, 
without expressing once more my deep con- 
viction, that, since it respects nothing less than 
the Union of the States, it is of most vital and 
essential importance to the public happiness. 1 
profess. Sir, in my career hitherto, to have 
kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor of 
iSi 



Daniel Webster 

the whole countiy, and the preservation of our 
Federal Union. It is to that Union we owe our 
safety at home, and our consideration and dig- 
nity abroad. It is to that Union that we are 
chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most 
proud of our country. That Union we reached 
only by the discipline of our virtues in the 
severe school of adversity. It had its origin in 
the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate 
commerce, and ruined credit. Under its be- 
nign influences, these great interests imme- 
diately awoke, as from the dead, and sprang 
forth with newness of life. Every year of its 
duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its 
utility and its blessings ; and although our ter- 
ritory has stretched out wider and wider, and 
our population spread farther and farther, 
they have not outrun its protection or its bene- 
fits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of 
national, social, and personal happiness, 

I have not allowed myself, Sir, to look beyond 
the Union, to see what might lie hidden in the 
dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed 
the chances of preserving liberty when the 
bonds that unite us together shall be broken 
asunder. I have not accustomed mj^self to 
hang over the precipice of disunion, to see 
whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the 
depth of the abyss below ; nor could I regard 
him as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this 
government, whose thoughts should be mainly 
bent on considering, not how the Union may 
182 



Reply to Hayne 

be best preserved, but how tolerable might be 
the condition of the people when it should be 
broken up and destroyed. While the Union 
lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying pros- 
pects spread out before us, for us and our chil- 
dren. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the 
veil. God grant that in my day, at least, that 
curtain may not rise ! God grant that on my 
vision never may be opened what lies behind ! 
When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the 
last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him 
shining on the broken and dishonored frag- 
ments of a once glorious Union ; on States dis- 
severed, discordant, belligerent ; on a land 
rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in 
fraternal blood ! Let their last feeble and lin- 
gering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign 
of the republic, now known and honored 
throughout the earth, still full high advanced, 
its arms and trophies streaming in their original 
lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a 
single star obscured, bearing for its motto, no 
such miserable interrogatory as " What is all 
this worth ? " nor those other words of* delusion 
and folly, " Liberty first and Union after- 
wards ; " but everywhere, spread all over in 
characters of living light, blazing on all its 
ample folds, as they float over the sea and over 
the land, and in every wind under the whole 
heavens, that other sentiment, dear to ever}' 
true American heart, — Liberty and Union, now 
and for ever, one and inseparable ? 
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